


The Grace Machine

by Dreamer_of_Improbable_Dreams, kisahawklin



Series: The Grace Machine [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 09, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Charlie Lives, Flying, Grace Kink, Human Crowley, Kevin Lives, M/M, Multi, Temporary Character Death, Wing Kink, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-10 11:56:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 53,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6984088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamer_of_Improbable_Dreams/pseuds/Dreamer_of_Improbable_Dreams, https://archiveofourown.org/users/kisahawklin/pseuds/kisahawklin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam closes the gates of Hell. Metatron kicks the angels out and closes the gates of Heaven.</p><p>When Sam's turned back from the pearly gates, he becomes something no one could have expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Art by Dreamer_of_Improbable_Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> This goes AU from the Season 8 finale. There are a few things in particular that don't match up. For more detail on these, see the notes at the end of the work. There are some dark and potentially disturbing things in this fic (but none of the typical archive warnings), please comment or email me (kisahawklin at gmail) if you need more information to judge whether the fic is safe for you.
> 
> Many thanks to seafirefox, my artist, who was wonderfully encouraging when the fic got waaaaaaay out of hand, and who has made the most gorgeous art you can imagine, as you can see below. 
> 
> This story needs so many thank yous. A story this size comes with built in doubt, and if it weren't for the team of cheerleaders, including clavally, curiouscorvid, crookedspoon, moriavis, annaliese01, deanniewrites, the entire flailosaurus crew, and my amazingest, wonderfulest betas, saekhwa and calypsid, it would not be here. Any mistakes that are left are clearly mine and mine alone.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel, God's most perfect angel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watercolor and black pen. Prints and commissions available by request.
> 
> By @seafoxfire on tumblr.

  
[](http://67.media.tumblr.com/672453d8d82712aa25159aa79733e18e/tumblr_o8hup5grf31t18ow1o1_1280.jpg)  


Click on the art to see the full size version

[Click here to go to the tumblr post](<a%20href=)


	2. Chapter 2

~~~

"Metatron lied. You finish this trial, you're dead, Sam."

"So?" Sam asks, clearly out of his mind now because he knows Dean will break if he dies, he knows and still he can't fail at this, his redemption, the only thing that could possibly make up for all his many mistakes and faults and inherent weakness.

Dean stares at him in disbelief, like he has no idea how obvious his disappointment with Sam is all the time, how he wears it on his sleeve right there with his stubborn steadfastness. Like he believes the world is all right as long as some scrap of his brother is hanging around, no matter if he's only ever been a complete screw-up.

Sam can't take it any more – they knew going in that there was going to be a sacrifice and he won't be able to go through with it if he lets Dean start talking. He slaps his bloody hand over Crowley's mouth before Dean can say anything else, the surprise on Dean's face turning instantly to hurt and anger before burning out into sorrow. 

Sam meets his eyes, sure he's mirroring every bit of Dean's sadness. _Sorry, Dean, I'm so sorry._

"CANA OM DARR." 

The words reverberate inside of him, like his body has been emptied and tuned to just the right pitch, an acoustic space for the sound of those words to echo forever. 

He can feel the coalesced power in his veins, building like a tsunami of fire. Dean has to cover his eyes or be blinded; Sam knows he won't look away if Sam doesn't break eye contact first, so he tips his head back and raises his eyes to the ceiling. The wave of energy breaks and pours out of his body, spilling out through his mouth and eyes and eventually his skin itself, white light and pure power.

He can feel the lever, the great heavy movement of the cogs and wheels of the universe turning, the shuddering of the doors into place, shaking the whole world as they close. Crowley lets out a keening wail, though whether it's about Hell closing or his newly human state, Sam wouldn't chance to guess. 

There is the purest music, true resonating notes in a beautiful language, telling him the secrets of the ages, letting him know he is loved and forgiven and his faith in God the absent father is restored. In that one instant he knows everything, he sees the great design and can feel the smile of his creator as he looks on, watching Sam's final accomplishment. 

Then one of the notes rings false, a glaring error in the celestial harmonies, and Sam is falling, and falling fast – so very fast, into darkness so complete his very existence is like a flame snuffed out.

~~~

_"Sam! Sammy! Don't you dare die on me, you asshole!"_

Sam can hear Dean like he's at the other end of a very long tunnel, the sound distorted and wobbly.

_"Sam! Damn it, you wake up, right the hell now!"_

The sound gets clearer when he concentrates on it, so he follows his brother's voice like a beacon in the empty vacuum that surrounds him.

There's a pounding, something that makes the whole small universe he's in jiggle sideways, and Sam opens his eyes to Dean beating on his chest. "Start breathing, you overgrown freak!"

"Dean," Sam croaks, looking up at his brother and the halo of white light that surrounds him, a giant camera flare that makes Dean look nearly angelic. 

"Sammy!" Dean chokes, yanking Sam up into his arms and holding on, tight enough that Sam feels light-headed. "You scared the crap out of me." That said softly in Sam's ear, as if even in the face of death Dean can't admit to being afraid, not out loud.

As loud as Dean's relief is, a palpable brightness in the air, it's small and insignificant next to the loss of that perfect music and the grand design, the sorrow of losing that state of perfection, the God who loved him because of his flaws, not in spite of them. He can't help the tears. If Dean mistakes them for happiness, so much the better.

Dean hangs on, strong enough for both of them because Sam couldn't move his arms even if he wanted to. Sam calms himself by degrees, listening to his heartbeat and breathing. The sound is muddled, though, like a double heartbeat, and suddenly he understands – he can hear the solid but fast thud of Dean's heart too. And then there's more, the thudding sound so loud and layered he can hardly stand it, and he knows whose is whose, too, like picking out voices in a crowded room. Dean's is steady and slowing, obviously tied to Sam's return, Crowley's is erratic, hitching with his sobs, and…

"Cas," Sam says. 

"What?" Dean asks. "Where?" He lets Sam go just a little, still holding Sam's shoulders like he might escape somewhere, and looks around the room.

"No," Sam says, closing his eyes and concentrating. He can feel distance, too, the eighteen inches Dean put between them obvious in the echo of the heartbeat reverberating in his skull. "He's out there. A couple of miles from here, in the woods." His heartbeat is thready and fast, hummingbird-like, and his sorrow soaks through Sam's mood enough to get him moving. He shoves Dean off him. "Something's wrong. We have to go get him."

Dean pulls back and stands, offering a hand to Sam. He takes it, in too much of a hurry to test out things like how his body's working right now. "You take Crowley," Sam says, "I'll drive."

~~~

Sam grabs his kit and most of the paraphernalia from the ritual as Dean gathers up a strangely submissive Crowley. His chains clank as they lead him out of the devil's trap, and he shuffles right out of it, solid proof Sam did the job right. There's a certain grim satisfaction to it.

Just before they get to the front door, Sam feels a skip in Cas's heartbeat, already categorized as background noise in the process of his thoughts. "We have to hurry," he says, because something that can scare an angel is dangerous business. 

They throw open the doors of the chapel and are immediately treated to the brightest meteor shower Sam has ever seen. "Oh no," Dean says, and he feels Cas's despair echo in Dean's heartbeat, which ticks up again. 

"What?" Sam asks. It seems appropriate to celebrate the closing of Hell with a meteor shower. What's a few space rocks compared to no more demons walking the earth?

"Those are angels," Dean says, and suddenly Cas's despair makes sense. 

"Falling? Angels are falling?"

Dean nods and shoves Crowley roughly into the back seat. "Let's go find Cas."

~~~

Sam drives on the little dirt road until it ends, and then follows a hiking path that's wide enough for the Impala for a little while, and then, when the forest gets too dense, puts her into park and looks over the backseat at Crowley.

"On foot from here," he says. "I can go get him, you can stay with Crowley."

"Hell no," Dean answers immediately. "I am not letting you out of my sight. Crowley can come along."

Sam tips his head toward Crowley, who is sleeping in the back seat. He looks like he hasn't slept in years and is making up for lost time.

"I am not leaving the ex-king of Hell alone in my car, Sam," Dean says, reaching over the seat and shaking Crowley. "Wake up."

Crowley looks completely confused when he wakes up, the glassy-eyed grogginess making him seem strangely harmless. Sam knows there's something wrong with his mental faculties because he actually considers leaving Crowley in the car. 

"Come on, sunshine," Dean says. "We have to go find a fallen angel."

"Tired," is all Crowley says, and his eyes sag shut.

"Too bad," Dean says, shoving him again, then getting out of the car and hauling Crowley bodily out of it. He's still in his collar and chains.

"Dean, he'll slow us down. Either let me go get Cas – he's close now, I can feel it – or take the chains off him."

Dean rolls his eyes at Sam but starts unlocking Crowley, taking the time to open the trunk and put away their special demon-holding chains. Habit, Sam knows, because they won't need them again, not ever. Maybe in eons to come, generations of Winchesters down the line, but not them.

"Alright, lead the way, Sam."

Cas's heartbeat has slowed down some, but it's filled with regret, a feeling so bone-deep familiar that Sam can't help but feel sorry for him. "It's bad," Sam says. "Whatever Cas did, it's pretty bad."

"I know," Dean says tightly, pushing Crowley in front of him with a firm grip on his shoulder.

They find Cas sitting on the ground with his head in his hands. "Cas?" Dean calls, and Sam can feel Cas's shoulders tighten up more than see it. 

"Dean," Cas says, and looks up. The light show is over, ended about five minutes after they got into the car, but Sam knows they can only take care of so much, and that starts with family. Whatever mistakes Cas has made, he's still family.

"We should go," Sam says. "We need to regroup and plan. Decide what we're going to do."

Cas glances at Sam, giving him a concerned look for just a second before shooting over to Crowley. "You did it." He looks back at Sam. "How are you still alive?"

Sam shrugs. "I don't know. But we should go. Come on, Cas, let's get out of here."

Cas stands, slow and ungainly – oddly fragile-looking. Something is not right with him, and as soon as Sam puts his mind on it, he knows the answer. "You're not an angel anymore," he says.

Dean whips his head around to stare at Cas. "What the hell happened up there?"

Regret and sorrow pour over Cas again, as sharp and as clear to Sam as his own when he was confessing his shortcomings to a God he now knows was actually paying attention. "Wait," he says. Dean doesn't understand, he hasn't fucked up like this in a long time, and as far as Sam can tell he only ever did it the one time, in Hell, when he was at the limit of his endurance. He doesn't understand what it feels like to try so hard to do the right thing and watch it all fall apart anyway, and have the weight of the world on your shoulders because of it. Or if he ever did, he's forgotten, like he's forgotten Ben and Lisa and how to live a normal life. "We can talk about it later. Let's just… go to Rufus's cabin."

They're nearly a full day's drive from the cabin, but it's the closest thing to a safe haven where they can take Crowley. Sam doesn't even think about bringing Crowley to the bunker. He knows the gates are closed and Crowley is human – and probably repentant – but he can't explain how he knows that to Dean, not to Dean's satisfaction, and that means Dean won't let him anywhere near their batcave.

"I'm driving," Dean says, and Sam reaches a hand out to Cas. Cas looks at him funny, but takes it, not even clasping their hands together for a full second – pulling his hand out of Sam's grip almost immediately. He squints at Sam, staring in the way he does, and then looks away, with a soft huff of humorless laughter. 

"Dean is the only one left whole," Cas says, and then laughs again, this time the dark sort of laugh they all get when it's life or death and gallows humor is the best you've got. Sam doesn't think he's not whole – he feels pretty good, considering – but he's changed, and Cas seems to know what kind of change it is. Maybe he can fix… But no, Cas isn't an angel anymore. Whatever is wrong with Sam is going to stay with him, possibly forever.

The thought doesn't affect him, strangely. Maybe he's been fucked up by the trials for so long he's used to it, wandering around with a low-grade fever and shaky legs for months. He doesn't feel shaky, though, and even Crowley's bite doesn't hurt. He grips Dean's bandanna in his palm, trying to feel the laceration on his hand, but there's no pain, no shift of the skin.

He unties it as they walk back to the car, staring down at his smooth palm and flexing his fingers. He unties the bandage around his forearm as well, not surprised when there's no bite. He's a little surprised that there's no scar from the time he accidentally stabbed himself with a silver knife when he was ten, but if he's honest with himself, not all that much.

When they get to the car, Sam lets Cas take the front seat and sits in the back with Crowley. He doesn't think Crowley will do anything but sleep, but he wants to try a few things and it'll be easier if Dean's focused on the broken angel in the front seat.

They ride in silence, Dean not even putting music on. Sam keeps his eyes down, not catching Dean's in the rearview even when he can feel them on him. He's too busy trying to catalog everything that's going on with him, from the superhuman healing factor to the awareness of not just everyone in the car, but everyone for _miles_. There are three fallen angels in that radius, one with a human vessel and two without. Their… consciousnesses… or whatever, feels diffuse and disjointed – like they're not really on the same plane. Their anger is sharp and cold, though, it slices through the not inconsiderable distance and makes Sam swallow hard. Whatever went down, the angels are _pissed_ and they have to get Cas somewhere safe.

There's a hum of almost-words in his brain, a few snatches coming to the surface now and again, but mostly white noise, except for the feelings he's getting from Dean and Cas, determination and sorrow and regret loud enough to drown the rest out. He can _hear_ the emotions as much as feel them.

He can feel other things, too – not just heartbeats and moods and intentions but the thickness of the strands that reach between them. Cas wasn't kidding about a special bond with Dean. There are thick pearlescent ribbons between them, much thicker than the rest of the connections in the car, except for him and his brother, which is more like a solid wall of white translucent energy. There's an intricate web of spider silk-thin strands coming off Crowley, quite a few connecting to the three of them, but many more going out in every direction, even up, which is something of a surprise, since all the angels seem to be wandering the Earth at the moment, and there's no reason to think he'd let any soul he had connections to get to Heaven.

Sam closes his eyes and leans his head on the window, feigning sleep. This new view of the world is exhausting, and it's easier when his eyes aren't trying to take in more information than his brain can process. With his eyes closed it's easier to concentrate on individuals, Cas's all-consuming sorrow, Crowley's deep regret, Dean's confusion and hurt throbbing like a distant ache under his simple and direct sense of purpose: get them to the cabin. Sam probes it like a sore tooth, trying to figure out how to make it better, how to alleviate the hopelessness that permeates Dean like the smell of smoke on his clothes after too long at the local bar.

~~~

They stop at grocery store on the way in, Sam buying enough for a couple of meals and Dean leaving Cas to guard the snoring Crowley while he runs across the street to score some beer at the liquor store. Rufus's cabin isn't small but it's definitely not made for four people. Where are they all going to sleep? The king in the master bedroom is big enough for two of them, and the couch is reasonable enough for a third, but… Sam rolls his eyes at himself. The fourth person is going to be watching Crowley.

He sighs and puts a jug of spaghetti sauce in his cart. They've got to get rid of Crowley, in some way Dean will agree to. Sam's got to find a way to convince Dean that Crowley isn't dangerous anymore, but he doesn't know what that is. 

He loads the groceries in the trunk and climbs in the backseat, Dean taking off almost before he can shut his door, clearly not in the mood to hang around.

~~~

When they get to the cabin, things are subdued at first. Dean takes a shower and Sam cooks up the spaghetti and Crowley sleeps on the couch until they start dishing up.

"I'm _starving_ ," Crowley says, taking the bowl Sam hands him and digging in with fervor. "I don't think I've eaten in centuries."

Sam smirks. Some demons carried cravings from their human forms – Ruby always loved food, the greasier the better. It doesn't seem like it'd be Crowley's thing, food. He wouldn't put sex past him, though. Not with his innuendo-soaked verbosity. 

Sam tries to eat, brings the fork up to his mouth a few times, but something puts him off. It can't be the smell, he's eaten spaghetti and meat sauce as long as he can remember – it's one of the easiest, cheapest, tastiest meals he and Dean can both cook. He tries again and gives it up as a lost cause. Maybe whatever's changed has taken away his appetite. He glances at the table to find both Cas and Dean staring at him.

"What?" Sam asks, his heart hammering nervously in his chest. Half of him doesn't want to know what happened to him back in the chapel; the other half is burning with curiosity.

"Metatron underestimated you," Cas says, staring at Sam like he's an abomination. He hasn't done that since they first met, back when Sam really had been an abomination. Maybe he is again. The way Dean's looking at him is plenty mistrustful enough for that to be the case.

"The grace would've killed an ordinary human – or even a normal angel's vessel. But you were a vessel for an archangel, one of the four most powerful ever created. You have demon blood as well, which helps you heal and strengthens you. And you've been without a soul before. It's like you were created specifically for this quest." That changes the way Cas looks at him, less disgusted and more curious. "Maybe this is what all your mistakes were for, Sam."

Dean frowns hard at that. Sam wants to soothe him somehow, tell him he's still the same Sammy that's always made spaghetti on his days to cook, but he's too struck by that word. _Grace_. He has grace. It makes sense, what with the healing and extra-sensory crap; he should have thought of it himself.

"What happened to his soul?" Dean asks, in the deceptively quiet voice that means he's really, _really_ angry. 

Cas looks at Dean, just for a second, but long enough that Sam knows he caught the meaning of the question. "I think it was destroyed," Cas says, and Sam gasps involuntarily. He's been without a soul before, but this feels different, the distant, cold memories of his previous soulless state nothing like the low-level awe and joy he's feeling now. 

"No," Crowley croaks from the coach, making Cas jump. Sam realizes he's already decided Crowley's no longer a threat so he's not on high alert. That's probably a mistake, judging from the way Dean's bristling, ready to jump down Crowley's throat. "You never did understand souls, Castiel. Sam's soul is still in there." He looks Sam up and down. "And it's healed."

Dean's annoyance melts away at that statement, a relief so strong Sam can feel it in his chest, his own heart skipping a beat at the sudden feeling of lightness. 

"The grace," Cas says, and Dean's happiness turns sour, and then bitter.

"So what," Sam asks, because he's not sure what it means that he has grace – and apparently a lot of it, "am I an angel now?"

"Only in the way that I am a human," Cas says, and that answers absolutely zero of Sam's questions. "My body is lacking grace – but I have all the memories of being an angel, of having grace, of what it means to have grace." He looks at Sam. "You have grace, but no idea how to use it, what it means, what to do with it. You have a soul, though, so you're still sort of human – but with power you can't hope to control."

Dean scowls, whether about Cas without grace or Sam with it, Sam can't tell. "So what about you?" Sam asks, curious about the strong feelings coming off Cas, regret, sorrow, despair. "Do you have a soul because you lost your grace?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Cas says, but he looks doubtful. He turns to Crowley. 

Crowley looks him up and down and shakes his head. "Not unless you count the soul of the poor schlub that meatsuit belongs to."

Sam can feel his mouth drop open. Jimmy is still in there? He has a sudden pang of sympathy for Jimmy and everything he's been through. He'd suggest finding a way to let Jimmy's soul go, but at this point, he's probably better off being comatose in Cas's head than in Heaven.

"Jimmy is no longer in this body," Cas says. "His soul was taken to Heaven when Raphael ripped this vessel apart years ago."

Crowley smiles thinly. "Well, _someone's_ soul is in there," he says, and Sam doesn't have time to wonder what that means before Dean puts his hands up in exasperation.

"I don't care about Cas's soul," Dean says, staring at Sam like he's worried Sam might sprout wings then and there. "He never had a soul before, we know –"

"I had grace," Cas says, angry now too, and Sam is not in the mood for a yelling match, but Cas's next statement stops him cold. "Grace provided me with the moral guidance I required."

"Uh, _no_ ," Sam says, only a little gratified by Crowley's snort of agreement. "Sorry, but your moral compass doesn't point north, Cas. Your grace never showed you the difference between right and wrong. You've had just as much trouble in that area as I have."

 _And aren't we a sorry pair._

Cas tilts his head at Sam, with a slight scowl that Sam thinks means his feelings are hurt, though he can't read Cas's body language very clearly, not like Dean. "Sorry, Cas, but you know–"

"Yes, Sam, I know," Cas says, brooking no further discussion.

Sam shrugs. If there's a bigger pair of fuck-ups in the world than him and Cas, he'd sure like to meet them. The thought strikes him funny and he laughs, the first time in what feels like ages. 

"This isn't funny," Dean says sternly, but that only makes it worse, Dean's scowly forehead and the way he sounds like dad used to when he was the worst sort of tyrant. Sam tries to get it under control but he can't, he really can't, and Crowley is laughing with him, which just makes it even funnier – him and Crowley laughing obnoxiously while Dean and Cas look on disapprovingly. This whole situation is a cosmic comedy of errors.

Suddenly dealing with all of it, the transformations, Dean's helplessness and anger, Cas's deep, abiding sorrow, all of it is too much for him. He can feel the grace boiling beneath his skin, restless and urgent. It probably thought it was going to be released when its mission was complete. He sort of wishes it had been. Death would've been a relief after all that, one less thing to let Dean down about. "I'm too tired to talk about this right now," he says, turning his back on them and heading to the bedroom. "Wake me up when there's breakfast on the table."

He can practically feel Dean's annoyance like a laser targeting him right between the shoulder blades. He doesn't care. He earned this, and he is going to sleep like a rock.

~~~


	3. Chapter 3

~~~

"Can't sleep?" Cas asks, handing him a beer. 

"Apparently not," Sam says, taking the tallboy and gulping half of it in one go. "Is that part of the grace?"

Cas nods. "You don't need to drink or eat, either, but I imagine those habits will be harder to break."

Sam sets the beer down, sighing. There's no point in drinking if he's not even going to get a buzz.

"I, on the other hand," Cas says with a sudden, huge grin that makes him look younger than Kevin, "am what Dean calls 'a lightweight.'"

Sam glances at the four bottles lined up in a neat row next to the sink. Dean's going to be pissed that they drank all his beer. "Well, you should be able to sleep then," Sam says, taking the fifth bottle out of Cas's hand and lining it up with the rest. "Come on, you can have my half of the bed. I won't be needing it."

He marches Cas out of the tiny kitchen, past where Dean's got his feet up on the table, watching Crowley sleep and pretending not to. Dean ignores them the same way he ignored Sam when he came through the first time, all the worry and care leached out of him, drained away to leave only the most primal of Dean's instincts, and rule number one is don't trust the demon in the room.

Sam stops, lets Cas shuffle off toward the king bed in the master bedroom, and turns to stand in front of Dean. "Go to bed," he says, trying to be pissy but unable to muster up enough annoyance to make it stick. 

Dean glances up at him, looking a little surprised at the lack of pissiness himself.

"Seriously," Sam says. "I don't need sleep. I'll watch him." He doesn't say that Crowley doesn't need watching, that they're going to have to put him on a path of redemption and let him go. They can't bring him with them everywhere, and his regret will keep him in line. He just doesn't know how to tell Dean in a way that will make him believe it.

"You just gave Cas the bed," Dean says. Sam rolls his eyes. The king is actually big enough for both of them, way better than sleeping together on the second queen when Sam was in high school and already taller than Dean.

"He's tiny," Sam says, "there's plenty of room for you. And don't even pretend you don't sleep in your clothes on top of the covers. You haven't undressed for bed since Lisa."

Dean turns a furious look on him, but Sam just shrugs. Dean can punch him for the Lisa reference all he wants. He debates suggesting it – it might make Dean feel better, and the grace seems to be healing Sam's body automatically. 

Dean needs to start thinking about a normal life. Sam is not going to let him die at this job, he's going to find a way for Dean to be happy and force him into some semblance a normal life if it kills him. Which it probably can't at this point, thanks for small favors. 

Sam raises an eyebrow at his brother – a dare, and it might earn him a punch if Dean's still feeling testy. Dean pooches out his lips, the way he does when he's trying not to lose face, and sniffs, heading down the hallway to the bedroom. 

"Good night, Dean." Dean stops with his back to Sam, the sudden seething mass of emotions boiling inside him painful to feel, even secondhand. Sam'd never really thought of Dean as a complex sort of guy. He'd always thought Dean was a guy with a few basic motivations and blinders the size of a small country. He'd been wrong, so wrong. Dean is complicated. So complicated he has to narrow his thoughts down to the most important thing and let everything else slide or go crazy trying to deal with all the conflicting feelings. 

This time, the most important thing, the one that floats to the top and calms everything else, is that Sam is still Sam, and he is still the only family Dean has left. "Night, Sammy."

~~~

Getting Dean to agree to get rid of Crowley is easier than Sam could have ever hoped for. Dean is worn thin with worry, for Sam mostly and some for Cas, and a not-insignificant amount for whatever mess Cas made in Heaven. They can't talk about how to fix it with Crowley in the room – or, more accurately, Dean _won't_ talk about it – and all it takes is the suggestion that they drop him at the first church they come across.

"Yeah, okay," Dean says. Cas doesn't seem to care, his attention turning more and more inward, the regret and despair obviously eating at him. 

"Do I get a say?" Crowley asks. 

"No," Dean and Sam say together, and Crowley sighs heavily.

"If I'm going to try to make amends, I should probably start with what I know," Crowley says. "I could help you." The earnestness in his voice would freak Sam out, but he can hear how desperate Crowley is, how badly he doesn't want to be left alone somewhere he doesn't know anyone – even if the only other option is the Winchesters and Cas. "If there's anyone I need to make amends to, it's you two."

Dean isn't automatically saying no, to his credit. Sam can still feel the deep distrust, but he's thinking about it, going over all the possible endings in his mind. Crowley is still a salesman, because he must be able to smell the blood in the water. "I told you about Sam's soul," he says. "I can still see some things."

That's news to Sam, and he turns to Cas to ask if _he_ can still see things too, but Cas is staring down at the table, clearly lost inside his own head. Sam nudges Cas's shoulder and he looks up at them all, with blank eyes, awareness snapping back into place after a brief moment where Sam's heart threatens to drop out of his chest. If Cas goes catatonic on them now, they're in deep shit.

"Can you still see things like when you were an angel?" Sam asks, thinking maybe Cas can help him manage some of his new senses. For every one he gets under control, two new things pop up and freak him out all over again. 

Cas looks up at him and Sam meets his eyes, staring back. He doesn't know what Cas is looking for, but he knows he can't look away, not now. Cas breaks, the sorrow Sam's felt since angels started falling written all over his face. Sam thinks that Cas would be crying if he understood how to do it. He'd thought emotional reactions were automatic to the human body, but Cas proves him wrong again.

"I can feel your grace," Cas says, and even Dean looks up at the sound of it. It's rough and low like Cas's voice always is, but the hurt in it is unmistakable. "I'm drawn to it." 

Crowley tuts, something that Sam would've assumed was the precursor to a smart remark with old Crowley. He thinks it might have actually been a sound of sympathy, though, and when he turns around, he can see the annoyance slide right off of Dean's face, replaced by a look of utter surprise. He can feel how off-balance Dean is; the wrongness on all sides has him grasping for anything normal. Sam does his best to oblige.

"Well," Sam says, sitting across from Cas, "let's figure this out. Tell us what happened upstairs, and don't spare any details."

~~~

By the time Cas explains that Metatron's deception was a spell, one that simply threw the angels out, not one that closed the gates of Heaven, Crowley is asleep on the couch again, his head pillowed on his hands. 

"How do you know?" Dean asks, saying the question on all their minds out loud.

"Because he told me," Cas says, and then tilts his head. "But also because my Father likes symmetry, and the three tasks we completed were not equivalent to the three tasks Sam completed. Besides," Cas says quietly, "closing the gates should have called all the angels home, not sent them to Earth."

"Well, that's good then, right?" Sam asks. "We still have Kevin and the angel tablet. Maybe we can figure out what he did and reverse it before the angels wreak havoc down here."

Sam looks up at Dean for confirmation, and Dean's eyes skate over to where Crowley is sprawled on the couch, eyes half-closed, like he's going to fall asleep again, even though he slept twelve hours last night.

"He's human," Sam says. "Harmless. And he can still see some things, so he might actually be useful."

Dean turns to Cas, something he's always done, looking for the angel's opinion. Cas doesn't look like much right now, though, his body somehow diminished without its grace. He doesn't even see Dean's glance and Dean's eyes come back to meet Sam's. "You're sure?"

Sam nods. He has a feeling he could smite Crowley if it came down to it, but he doesn't want to upset Dean any more than he already is, so he keeps it to himself. Instead, he brings up the idea he's been turning over since Cas described how Metatron took his grace. "So," Sam says, trying to sound casual and failing pretty miserably – he just doesn't _do_ casual, and they all know it. "If I have grace, and Cas needs grace…" 

"No," Dean says automatically. "Metatron had to slit Cas's throat to get it."

"He can heal me after," Sam says, carefully keeping back the feeling that maybe he won't need to. He looks over at Cas for support, wincing when he sees how Cas is curled into himself on the couch. It's strange to see him so diminished, with his wings all tucked in around him.

Sam blinks. 

His wings. Sam can see Cas's wings.

"Holy shit, Cas," Sam breathes, because his wings are _beautiful_. Also huge. They're iridescent, white with a multi-colored sheen, and the largest feathers are over two feet long. Sam can't help staring.

Cas perks up, looking at Sam quizzically. As soon as he takes in Sam's wide-eyed stare, his wings wrap around him even tighter.

Sam suddenly knows why Cas seems diminished. He doesn't know how, but he knows normally Cas has his wings out, taking up more than his fair share of space in the room. Considering how uncomfortably close Cas likes to stand, and the fact that Sam's hugged him, Sam's actually been _inside_ those wings. A rush of sorrowful sympathy for Cas overtakes him and he pulls his gaze away. "Maybe there's a way for me to do it without the throat slashing. Maybe I can expel the grace willingly."

Cas stands up then, his wings unfurling behind him, a huge twelve foot spread, and the tight knot in Sam's chest loosens. He can feel Dean relax too, though he's sure Dean doesn't know why he feels comforted. "It may be possible," Cas says. "But I will…" He glances nervously at Dean. "I will have to be in physical contact with you to accept it, or it may scatter."

Sam doesn't really understand what Cas is getting at, but Dean apparently does and it must be funny, because he's slapping his thigh and giving Sam his best shit-eating grin. "He's gonna have to kiss you," Dean says, off Sam's annoyed look.

"Oh," Sam says. Nothing more really comes to him. It makes sense – if he does manage to expel the grace, it's likely to come out of his mouth. It seems like a reasonable solution. He knows he should be embarrassed, that's why Dean's looking all smug and amused, but he doesn't really care. "Okay."

Dean seems a little put out that Sam's not going to get all flustered, so he needles Sam about getting rid of the grace instead. "So how do you figure you'll get rid of the stuff? Can't just stick a finger down your throat."

Sam shrugs. "I'll meditate. I've done energy meditations before. Shouldn't be too hard to move the grace like chi."

Dean gives him the look that Sam knows means _I swear you're adopted_ and Sam shrugs it off. "No time like the present," he says, and the tips of Cas's wings lift up slightly. It gives Sam a second of empathetic joy; he can tell Cas is hopeful their plan will work, and it resonates within Sam on a strange level, some part of him he's never been aware of before. 

He'll be sorry to lose the easy equanimity the grace seems to have given him. He knows it freaks Dean out, but Sam feels solid and stable and grounded and every other adjective for deeply-rooted his mind can imagine. It's strange, really, that nearly being an angel makes him feel more down-to-earth.

While Sam's been thinking about grace, Cas has apparently been thinking about logistics. "Here," he says, pulling a hard-backed chair out from the table and putting it in the center of the room. "If you sit on this and tip your head back, I should be able to stand over you to accept the grace."

Sam agrees and takes his seat in the center of the room. "It might take a while," he says, because even though he's been practicing meditation for decades, he hasn't done it regularly enough to get himself into a trance state on command.

Cas nods and takes a step closer, lowering his wings like a canopy over Sam. Sam smiles as his eyes slide shut. He wonders if that's why Cas doesn't really understand the idea of personal space. He wonders if Cas has always used his wings to comfort and shelter them. He hopes so.

It's surprising how quickly Sam drops into a meditative state. It probably shouldn't be; he's meditated, mostly without really knowing what he was doing, for as long as he can remember. It's the way he's always fallen asleep in the car, and when he was young, it was the way he'd spend the hours while he waited for Dad to get back (at least until he discovered reading). He slips into it easily, settling his breathing and cataloguing what's going on in his body. He concentrates on the grace – he can feel it moving underneath his skin, ripples of fire building toward a high tide. 

He forces the waves to move the direction he wants, imagining them swelling up his body and then out his mouth. He hears Dean's heartbeat tick up so he's pretty sure he's gotten it right. The grace pushes his head back and his mouth drops open automatically. He can sense it even after it leaves him, and he knows it's going to Cas – he can feel the connection between them down to his soul. Maybe more than his soul. And it feels _familiar_. 

Cas isn't actually kissing him – he's standing behind Sam's chair and looking down at him, a couple of feet between their faces. Cas's hands are on his shoulders, Cas's wings are arched above them and Sam feels safe. 

There is so much grace. The transfer goes on for long minutes, and Sam doesn't feel like he's gotten rid of much grace at all – there is still a flood of it rippling up his body and out his mouth. He's not quite sure how much there is, or how volume even works with grace, but he feels like maybe this is a lot.

"Sammy, stop!" Dean shouts a little while later, and he can feel Dean's hands on him and Cas. He's pulling Cas's hands away, pushing Cas across the cabin, to the far corner of the kitchen, and Sam can feel the rush of air as Cas's wings are pulled back.

Sam stills, the grace still leaving him, but the connection between him and Cas severed. He doesn't know what to do; he can just continue to expel the grace, but there's so much left. He has a feeling it would take forever, and then there would just be a pile of grace sitting around for some rogue angel to take. He doesn't think grace can be destroyed – at least, not by mundane means. Maybe used up in a spell, like Cas's was, but he's pretty sure it doesn't just dissipate. 

He forces the grace to stop moving and closes his mouth. It takes a minute to still the grace; there was a lot of forward momentum built up in the motion – like it knew it was going to a worthy vessel and getting out of this crappy one. Sam can't help smiling at the thought.

Once the grace is under control, he opens his eyes to look at Dean and Cas. Dean isn't touching Cas anymore. He's hovering closely, but not touching – his hands moving restlessly next to Cas like he's trying to find somewhere safe to touch him. 

Cas is glowing. There's grace lighting his eyes and under his skin, and he looks so full of it he might burst. Maybe that's what Dean was afraid of. 

Sam covers the space between him and Cas in two huge steps and puts his hand out to steady Cas. "Don't!" Dean shouts, shoving Sam's hand away, and Sam can see the blistering skin on Dean's hands now. 

Sam puts a hand on Dean's shoulder and gently pulls him back, stepping right up into Cas's space. "Cas," he says, putting a hand on Cas's face. Cas looks up at him, his eyes glowing near-white. "Give some back."

Sam doesn't wait for Cas to acquiesce, he just kisses him, calling to the grace, reversing the tide, reeling it back in. After a few moments, his hand on Cas's face tells him that Cas is stable, so he breaks the kiss and steps back.

As soon as his attention isn't completely focused on Cas, he can feel Dean's eyes on him, surprise and confusion warring for dominance among a host of other emotions in Dean's head. One of which is arousal, and that's not something Sam would've ever guessed about his brother.

He hadn't kissed Cas for any other reason than it seemed the most expedient way to get the grace back, but apparently that's not what Dean saw.

Cas is experiencing extreme emotions as well, and Sam reaches a hand out to him for support. Cas twists away from it.

"Stop," Cas gasps. "Don't… I need a moment." He bends over, like he might throw up, and moans softly. 

"Whoa," Sam says, reaching out again, "Cas, are you all right?"

Cas twists away from him again. "This… feels strange," Cas grits out, and shivers. Then he moans and shivers again, his body undulating with graceful fluidity. 

"What is it?" Sam asks.

Cas pauses, his body still shifting. He closes his eyes. "Please… give me a moment."

Sam's not sure if Cas needs a moment to get his words together to explain, or if he really needs a moment to himself – the small, breathy moans he's making sound uncomfortably like he's turned on. "You want us to leave?" Sam asks, because better safe than sorry.

"No," Cas says immediately, his hand on Sam's arm in a flash. He moans loudly at the touch and shivers again. "Don't leave, just… don't ask me to talk."

Sam shifts, his own cock thickening involuntarily to the sight of Cas writhing in something approaching ecstasy, the little moans and his fingers digging into Sam's forearm making it worse. Sam glances over his shoulder at Dean and sees him staring intently down at his boots. Sam would say he was blushing if he thought Dean was genetically capable of such a thing.

A new sensation pierces Sam's awareness like a needle in his brain. Pain. Dean's in pain. Sam remembers the burns on Dean's hands and gently extracts himself from Cas to tend to his brother. He uses the cuffs of Dean's shirt to lift Dean's hands up so he can examine them without touching. There are blisters all over the reddened skin, and Sam knows damn well how bad burns hurt, so he's a little surprised it took this long for the pain to kick in.

He has half a mind to try healing Dean, but he doesn't really know how. He tries reaching out with his grace, but it doesn't seem to do anything, and he doesn't want to touch the skin and make it worse if he can't actually make it better.

Cas intervenes, elbowing Sam out of the way and holding his palm out over Dean's hands. There's a warm glow of Cas's grace, and in the blink of an eye the blisters and red skin are gone, and it's just Dean's hands, looking the same as they always do.

"You have to teach me how to do that," Sam says. He's usually good going on instinct, but without a life and death situation, Sam's always going to worry he'll do more harm than good. 

Cas sighs and takes a step away from Sam. "You have to realize that your body is not solid. It is made of energy. You can manifest your grace in any part of your body at any time."

"I had that part," Sam says. "I just didn't know how to make it heal Dean."

"Oh," Cas says, and glances at Dean uncomfortably. 

"Oh?" Dean asks, his heartbeat ticking up. "What does that mean?"

Cas shifts, and even though his heartbeat is completely, solidly regular, Sam can feel his discomfort coming through loud and clear. He knows Cas will answer, though, so he doesn't bother insisting. Eventually Cas takes a step away from Dean and says, "You have to push your grace through the damaged parts of the body and knit it up from the inside out."

Cas looks away, and Dean's heartbeat calms back down. Whatever Dean might have been worried about, it's not that. 

"Okay," Sam says, because this is something he wants to be able to do, and soon, and it's kind of important that he not fuck it up in a crucial moment. He waits to see if there's more. He thinks there's more.

Cas flicks his eyes to Dean and looks at Sam. "You have to join your grace with their soul – it's the soul that knows what needs to be healed – a genetic blueprint of a perfect… Dean, in this case."

Sam's not sure how he feels about that; what about birth defects and genetic disease and – 

_A perfect Dean._

"Can you heal emotional trauma?" Sam asks. He and Dean have both been healed by Cas a number of times; he's not sure about what his soul might consider a perfect version of himself, but he thinks it's probably one that hasn't done a lot of things he's done.

Cas's mouth tightens uncomfortably. "Yes. But most souls are carrying around their scars for a reason. If you change the nature of the soul, you change the person. You must listen to their soul – sometimes they do not wish to be healed at all."

Sam stares at Cas for a long moment. "Is that why you couldn't heal my insanity?"

Cas meets his eyes, and now his heartbeat _does_ tick up a little. It occurs to Sam that Cas's heartbeat shouldn't change – or maybe he shouldn't even have one – because he's an angel. He listens for any other angels nearby, quickly (two in probably a three-mile radius), and only hears one heartbeat, a dull solid thudding. He concentrates on it, to see if he can somehow feel the vessel's soul, but nothing comes through.

Suddenly he realizes the silence in the room has gotten awkward and he brings his eyes up from the floor, which he'd been staring at, apparently. "What?"

Cas gives him a grim smile. "I said, you felt you deserved it. You would have punished yourself one way or another, so I couldn't simply heal you."

Sam can feel the anger and disbelief rolling off Dean, and it's a perfect complement to the regret and sadness he feels himself. "But you could take on the burden? You thought I was okay with that?"

Cas's heartbeat speeds up again, this time there's a thread of something else there, not just the usual penetrating calm. A very specific sort of sadness, focused on something that Sam can't quite make out. "It was my fault. There was justice in it. Your mind could accept that, even if you wouldn't have wished it on me purposefully."

Dean's anger boils over, and he grabs Cas by the lapels and shakes him. "But you knew you would get rid of it eventually, right? You'd be able to heal yourself?"

"Dean," Sam says, reaching for Dean's nearest hand and pulling it off Cas. "Dean, he was just doing what we taught him. You fix your own mistakes, right?"

Dean drops his other hand and wipes a hand over his face, turning away.

"I hate to spoil the party," Crowley says, and even Sam jumps. He realizes he's found a way to automatically shut out all the extraneous information his grace is feeding him, so he hadn't noticed Crowley was awake. Just knowing he can do that is a massive relief. 

They all turn to look at Crowley. "I think Sam is starting to overflow."

He's looking at the small snake of grace resting on the floor, and Cas frowns, going to the cupboards and rummaging through before finding a fat Tupperware with a lid. He scoops up the grace and covers it up, setting it on the table. It covers them all in a bluish glow, and looks almost like a jar of fireflies, the way the grace moves and shifts.

"That's a lot of grace," Crowley remarks. 

"Shut up," Dean says, annoyance resting on top of a host of other feelings. Sam can feel the exhaustion setting in, how it's pulling Dean's patience thin and coloring everything he's feeling with a dull coat of protective separation.

"Crowley is right," Cas says. "It is a lot of grace. Two or three times what I have and I'm carrying more than I can ever remember."

Sam picks up the container, shaking it a little. That was in him. Plus what he gave Cas. How much grace is there? Where is it coming from?

Cas coughs uncomfortably, and when Sam looks up, all three of them are staring at him. "What?"

"How much more do you have?" Cas asks. "Can you quantify it?"

Sam opens his mouth to answer, but stops before he can tell Cas he has no idea. He looks at the door. One of the angels he felt nearby is standing on the other side of it. "No time," he says. "We have company."

The door blasts inward, sending Cas and Dean back a few steps, and Crowley to the other side of the couch. Dean gives the container of grace a shove and it skitters across the table and falls onto the floor. 

A young girl steps into the cabin, no more than sixteen. She looks at them all, stopping at Cas. As soon as she sees him, her wings flare outward, a huge twelve-foot spread, but ruined – the feathers are gone or burnt, and only the outline of the bones remains true. Cas spreads his wings out in response, his right curling around Sam and Dean protectively.

"Castiel," she says icily. She is angry, and above all the other feelings in the room, Sam can feel Dean's reaction: a sharp spike of fear, followed immediately by anger, rising up like a tidal wave. 

He steps in front of Cas. "Who's asking?"

Cas puts a hand on Dean's shoulder and pulls him back, taking a small step to put himself in front of them. His wing is curved well behind him now, still around Sam and Dean. "Seth," he says. "It is good to see you."

Sam wonders if he can see the burnt wings or feel the immense anger and sense of loss pouring off of Seth. He can only assume so, though Cas seems immune to it. Seth stands impotent for a moment, presumably unable to respond to Cas's greeting.

Sam thinks about what Cas said about how to heal and suddenly wonders if he can heal the damage to the angel. He steps forward, and Seth glances at him briefly, immediately dismissing him, still focused on Cas. Sam takes two more steps and puts his hands up when Seth raises his angel blade. 

"Just want to help," Sam says, reaching out a hand toward one of the joints of Seth's wing. He can feel a bubble of surprise float up in Seth's consciousness, and then pain when Sam actually sets his hand on the wing. 

As soon as he does, he must close his eyes. There are layers to Seth's being, and he has to shut down his human senses to be able to comprehend them all. He can feel the human vessel, the fear and disorientation of the poor girl. He can also feel Seth's grace, undiminished from the fall, which Sam doesn't understand – if Seth's grace is intact, why doesn't he heal himself? 

Then Sam understands. Seth's angelic body is mostly… somewhere _else_. Sam thinks perhaps another plane of existence, one adjacent to this, though his mind backs away from the idea. Even the wings here are only a representation of the angelic body, and Sam uses his grip on Seth's wing to focus his thoughts on that body. He knows it doesn't have DNA, but every body has a blueprint, right? If he can find the design, he can –

_There._

He knows he is gone – he has left his body, though what part of him is here, he is unsure. He is standing next to Seth, an unbelievably gorgeous being with more facets than a diamond. The angelic body is in several states at once, but Sam can see what it is supposed to be, and the damage that was caused by the fall to Earth. 

_It's okay,_ Sam says, his hand still on Seth, _I see you._

The hope quivering in Seth's form doubles Sam's determination, and he puts his other hand on Seth, sending a ribbon of grace forward and weaving Seth's angelic body together to match the perfect image that is shimmering in his mind. When he is done, he can barely process the brilliance that is Seth, squinting with eyes that are not truly present in this plane.

He takes his hands off Seth and is thrown back into his physical body hard enough to rock him back on his heels. Dean lunges for him, putting a supportive hand on his back. 

"Sam Winchester," Seth says, his voice soft and reverent.

Sam nods his head once, shifting his weight forward to stand on his own two feet. He's never quite sure how he feels about being recognized by angels.

"Thank you." Seth looks at Cas, several different things passing over the young girl's expressive face to match emotions that rush by Sam in a swarm of colors. "Why did you do it, Castiel?"

The deep sadness Sam can feel from Cas is almost physically painful. "I was tricked by Metatron," Cas answers. "He stole my grace, and used it to expel the host from Heaven."

Seth winces. "They don't know that. They will all be looking for you." He glances at Sam and Dean. "And the Winchesters, as your affiliation with them is well known." He glances at Cas's wing, still curled protectively around them, and raises an eyebrow. 

"Will you explain to them?" Cas asks. "Will you spread the word?"

Seth frowns, tilting his head at Cas and then shifting his gaze to Sam. 

"I will try," Seth says. "Angels are a stubborn lot." He nods at Sam. "Thank you, Sam Winchester. I have no way to repay you – and I think you do not quite understand what you have done – but I am in your debt."

Sam isn't quite sure how to take that; he can ask Cas later about what was so unusual about what he did, but he wants to settle the debt before Seth leaves. "You can repay me by putting the girl to sleep," he says. When Seth tilts his head in confusion, Sam adds, "Your vessel. She's scared and confused. Can you put her to sleep? Or at least talk to her, calm her fears?"

Seth meets Sam's eyes and nods. "I will. You must go, though. There are several angels converging on this place, and they will be here soon."

Sam can see the motion of Seth's wings, the fraction of a second before he disappears. He blinks in surprise, uncertain he can believe his eyes. "You fly," he says. Dean and Cas turn to him. "I never realized you zapping in and out was _flying_." He doesn't know why, it seems so obvious now. Without being able to see the wings, though, it had seemed more sci-fi, like teleporting.

"Yes, and I will fly us all out of here right now," Cas says. He pushes forward, his hands pressing Dean backwards into Sam, and Crowley nearly leaps off the couch, throwing his arms around the group of them. Sam can feel Cas's annoyance, but he doesn't shake Crowley off, and before he knows it, they are standing somewhere in a forest, with a canopy that blocks out even the moonlight and is a deeper black than Sam can ever remember.

"Hey," he hears Dean say, the buzzing sensation hitting him at the same time. He remembers it; this is what it felt like when Cas carved sigils into his ribs. 

"Watch it, Castiel," Crowley says, but Sam can't see him, and before he can even use his extra senses to try and place everyone in their ragtag band, he hears Cas's wings again.

~~~


	4. Chapter 4

~~~

They appear in the middle of the bunker. Kevin is sitting at one of the tables, staring down at the tablet, and as soon as they appear, he scrambles out of his seat and away from them, hiding behind the chair. His fear is so strong, Sam can practically taste it. "What's going on?" he asks, his eyes shifting jaggedly between them.

"It's okay, Kev," Dean says, oozing trustworthiness. Sam hadn't realized just how untrustworthy Dean really is when he's faking it. It's creepy. "Crowley's human now, and the gates are shut."

Kevin's eyes grow huge and Sam can feel the anger, and deep distrust of Crowley as background noise against the sharp disbelief that Sam completed the trials. "You did it," Kevin breathes, and his eyes cut over to Sam. "And you're still here."

He can feel Dean's anger before he can see it, a swell of red hot lava, but Dean is fast and Sam is too far away to keep him from advancing on Kevin menacingly. "Did you know?" 

Sam throws himself forward, a hand on Dean's shoulder to hold him back. 

"Did. You. Know." Dean says, his anger going cold. Sam tightens his grip, keeping Dean in place.

"Not before you left for the church," Kevin says, shrinking back further against the bookshelves, a very real and not unfamiliar fear of Dean foremost in his mind. "Not until after you brought me the angel tablet and the whole bunker went crazy and locked me in."

"Dean," Sam says softly, hopefully just loud enough for Dean alone to hear. Dean shakes him off and stalks off toward the kitchen. 

Sam sighs. "Cas, get Crowley set up in a room, will you? Might as well pick one for yourself – we're going to have to angel-proof the bunker somehow, and find a way to give you access."

"Kevin," Crowley says, but before he can say anything else, Kevin slides down the wall to sitting, putting his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut, and chanting "not listening" over and over again.

"Apologize later, Crowley," Sam growls. "He's already in shock, he can't deal with you right now."

"Come on," Cas says, putting a hand on Crowley's shoulder and pushing him toward the sleeping quarters.

Sam approaches Kevin, not sure how to get his attention without scaring him. After a moment of watching Kevin rocking back against the bookcase, he puts a hand on Kevin's knee gently, and Kevin opens his eyes, the wariness there reflecting the echo of his feelings in Sam's mind. He doesn't like Kevin being afraid of him. 

"It's okay," Sam says. Kevin shakes his head, and Sam holds his eyes, projecting as much reassurance as possible, nodding his head slowly. "It _is_. Crowley is human – and remorseful. He feels bad about what he did to you."

Kevin searches Sam's eyes, and Sam calmly meets his gaze, letting him find what he needs there. "What happened to you?" Kevin asks.

Sam shrugs. "I died, I think. But Metatron closed the gates of Heaven, and I got sent back to my body." He hadn't thought about this closely before, but – "I'm not sure how I came back. I probably should've been stuck in the veil."

Kevin tilts his head, looking at Sam a little vacantly. It's the way he looks at the tablet when he's trying to read it, and seeing it directed at himself creeps Sam out. "It probably has something to do with the grace."

"Or Dean," Sam answers. "I heard him calling me."

Kevin huffs out a laugh. "Yeah, I'd be afraid of letting Dean down, too."

Sam stands and holds out a hand to Kevin. "C'mon. Let's go scrounge up some food for everybody. We have a lot to talk about."

~~~

By the time they get to the kitchen, Dean has calmed down and is halfway through making a gigantic stockpot of chicken soup, so Sam and Kevin busy themselves with setting the table, carrying armfuls of bowls, plates, silverware, drinks, condiments, chips, and crackers out to the main room. 

"Cas! Crowley!" Dean bellows as he brings out a tray piled high with bread, meat, and cheese. "Get out here!"

Kevin throws a trivet on the table as Sam approaches so he can set the steaming stockpot of soup on top of it, and once it's sitting in front of him, he ladles out soup into bowls. Sam takes one, but doesn't do more than swirl his spoon around it once. His appetite has been fading for a while, and there is too much to think about to bother eating if he's not hungry.

Sam sits back, watching everyone stuff their faces. Dean is eating with gusto, and his mouth wide open, as always, and so is Crowley. Apparently remorse makes him hungry. Kevin is picking at his sandwich, eyeing all of them but Crowley especially, and Cas is looking down into his soup bowl, stirring it and watching different bits and pieces come to the surface.

"Okay," Dean says once there's nothing but crumbs left on his plate. "What's our next move?"

Sam's not quite sure what Dean means by that, but he's been thinking about the angels tracking them down, and it worries him. "We need to protect ourselves and the bunker," Sam says. "Remember Magnus's spells? What if we can tweak them so that only people with the right mark can come in?"

Dean nods. "Can you do that?" 

" _I_ can," Crowley says. He rolls his eyes when the entire table turns to stare at him. "Fine, if you don't want my help."

Sam does want his help, and will ask him later, after Dean's crashed for the night, but for now he just says, "I'm sure I can. But I want it to be a sigil. Something most people can't see. Speaking of," Sam says. "Kevin's going to need sigils too, and I want to learn how to do that."

"Okay," Cas says, "but only because it will use up a small measure of your grace. We need to talk about how much grace you are carrying, Sam."

"Fine," Sam says, getting up and circumnavigating the table to stand behind Kevin's chair. "So how does this work?"

Cas sighs and stands, nodding at Kevin to stand as well. "You don't know the sigils yet, so if you think you will need to ward people in the future, I will have to write them out for you to memorize. For now, I will create a faint tracing on Kevin's ribs, and you can use your grace to create the actual carving."

"Whoa whoa whoa," Kevin says, backing away from them. "Did you just say you're going to _carve_ something into my _ribs_?" 

"It doesn't hurt," Sam says. "Cas has done it to us twice."

"Feels a little weird, though," Dean offers. "Like you're vibrating on the inside. Makes your teeth rattle."

Kevin gives Dean a flat look and Sam has to bite his cheek not to laugh. "Thanks, Dean," Kevin says with a truly impressive amount of sarcasm, "that makes me feel _much_ better."

"It may take a while, as well," Cas says. "Since Sam will have to trace the sigils carefully."

"Wait," Sam says, suddenly as wary as Kevin. "We can't afford to mess it up – and we don't really have the time for me to meticulously tattoo Kevin's ribs. Can't you just… use my grace to do it?"

Cas considers this, then takes Sam's hand and lays it on top of Kevin's heart, leaving his own on top of Sam's. "Focus on expelling your grace through your palm," Cas says, and Sam closes his eyes, listening for the rippling tide of his grace and then subtly directing it to his right hand. He can feel Cas's grace wrap around it and guide it – inside Kevin's body, Sam realizes, though without his sight it doesn't seem nearly as gross as it might – and then the lightning fast tracing of the sigils around Kevin's ribs. The grace etches them into Kevin's bones like acid, and Sam manages to keep up with the Enochian for five or six symbols before it becomes too much.

He hears a rasping sound that he can't quite place until Cas starts to withdraw his grace and Sam follows suit. It's Cas's breathing – harsh and fast and… he hasn't completely gotten a grip on Cas's… feelings, or whatever it is that passes for them in angels, but the emotion that's sympathetically resonating in him is desire.

Cas takes his hand off Sam's and Sam takes a second to process the download of stuff he just got from Cas. It's a weird feeling, well beyond sexual, though there's some of that mixed up in it, a steady hum under the haze of longing. It isn't until Kevin clears his throat that Sam realizes he's standing there staring off into the distance, his hand still on Kevin's chest.

"Sorry," Sam murmurs, dropping his hand. He can feel Cas struggling to control his breathing still, and he doesn't know where to look. He's not sure he wants to see what's going with Cas and he doesn't want to know if Dean or Crowley noticed. He can only hope that at least Kevin was too busy to pay attention to Cas's weirdness.

"So," Dean says, "we good?"

Sam can't help looking up at him; he has an automatic reaction to look at Dean when he speaks. He nods. "Yeah, he's got 'em."

"Okay," Dean says, raising an eyebrow at Cas. "Then what's up with Sam's grace?"

"There's too much of it," Crowley says, and they all turn to look at him again. "What?!" he grumps. "I'm helping."

"Crowley's right," Cas says, and Sam can feel Cas's grudging respect for Crowley's assessment. "Sam had more grace than I could accept safely, and that was probably only the tip of the iceberg." 

Sam closes his eyes, turning his focus inward. He roots around inside his body until he can identify the grace – by opening that portal to the other dimension again. Before he can really take a look around, though, a razor-sharp emotion from Dean snaps him back into his body, and this time it's Cas that steps up to steady him. 

"What?" Sam asks, holding down his own hysterical response because he knows Dean overreacts sometimes.

"Baby," Dean wails. "I left Baby at the cabin!"

There's genuine distress there, and underneath a current of despair because if there is one thing Dean is good at, it is knowing if something is a really bad idea, and going to get the Impala is a _seriously_ bad idea.

"The grace," Cas says, taking his hand away from Sam's back, and Sam probably wouldn't have even noticed, but there is a sudden spike of loss from Cas that breaks through the tangle of emotions he can feel from Dean.

"Oh, shit," Sam says. "Do you think the other angels found it? Will they be able to tell it's mine?" He turns around, meeting Cas's eyes for the first time since before engraving Kevin's ribs, and Cas meets them for only a second before looking down at the table. There's a strange sort of satisfaction in having Cas be the one to look away first.

"Yes," Cas answers. "And some of them may even be able to guess why you have it."

That doesn't make any sense to Sam; so what? He got the grace to close the doors of Hell. Surely the angels could get on board with that plan.

"I don't get it," Dean says, and Crowley opens his mouth to explain, but Cas cuts him off.

"I need to recover it," Cas says, and Sam can feel something stirring in Cas. Intent; purpose. Sam gets ready to pounce. 

Sam can see Cas's wings twitch before they spread, and he lunges, grabbing onto Cas's forearm and holding on tight. He can feel Dean's layered annoyance: irritation, exasperation, and fear for Sam's safety underneath. Then Dean is gone, too far away for Sam to feel him except in the way he always feels a little connected to his brother, distance be damned. It's the most normal feeling he's had in two days.

They travel through the other plane; Sam's beginning to think of it a little like subspace in Star Trek. There isn't really a landscape, but there are colors and shapes, and ghostlike representations of angels, too beautiful for his mortal eyes. He wishes he could see the shape of his own grace. It's probably nothing compared to an actual angel's, but it's his, and he'd like to know what it looks like.

 _It is stunning, Sam_ , Cas says, and Sam simply doesn't know what to do with that. He doesn't have time to think about it anyway because they've made their way to the cabin and Sam feels the compression of his entire self, body, soul, grace, everything, as Cas squeezes them through the membrane separating the planes and back into the physical world.

When they land, Cas has his arms wrapped around Sam. He sets them down gently and pushes Sam up to standing, taking his hands away as soon as Sam can balance on his own two feet. Sam feels the curious sense of loss again, but he doesn't have time to dwell on it because there are a pair of angels standing in the middle of the cabin, blades drawn. 

Their wings are spread, but like Seth's, they're burnt beyond recognition. Sam reaches out for the one nearest him. 

"Sam, no," Cas warns, but Sam's not afraid of angel blades, not anymore. He's not entirely sure why, but he can heal these angels, and while they might not trust him, they can't kill him. Besides, once he heals them, he's pretty sure they won't want to. He thinks. He doesn't honestly care about that part; he just knows they are suffering and he has the means to relieve it.

The angel pulls her wing out of reach and swings at Sam with the blade, but he's ready for it. It's a simple sidestep and then he has the angel's arm, and that's even better than her wing. Sam latches on with both hands and immediately concentrates on the few remaining feathers of her wings. The wings are only barely in this plane; if he focuses on them, slipping into angelic subspace should be easy.

He is getting better at pushing himself through the thin skin separating the physical and the metaphysical. He looks around for the blueprint, and sees that the angel's name is Sarah.

 _It's okay, Sarah_ , he says, weaving his grace around her, building her wings out of thin air, his grace tracing delicate patterns in the feathers as they grow. _I am here to help you._

There is a ripple of confusion from Sarah when he starts which slowly morphs into incredulousness, and finally a deep gratitude as she flexes her wings. She tucks Sam under her wing and brings them back to the physical plane, where Cas is fighting with the other angel. Cas raises his blade for a killing blow, and Sam yells, "Cas, no!"

He runs over to put himself between Cas and the other angel, unsurprised when the other angel takes a wide swing and stabs Sam through the chest. Cas cries out, anguish and failure and heartbreak rippling through him as Sam's name echoes in the cabin.

It doesn't matter, though – he can feel his own grace knitting his lung back together not even a second after the blow, and if the blade doesn't get removed soon, it will be stuck in Sam's ribcage like the punch line of a bad joke.

Cas plunges his blade into the angel holding Sam, right into its vessel's heart.

"No," Sam says, with tenderness, and forgiveness, gripping Cas's wrist and removing the blade. He calmly places his hand over the wound that is leaking grace and heals the human – a middle-aged accountant from Missoula – before taking himself and the angel to the other plane.

_What are you doing, human?_

There's a sharpness to this angel that Sam hasn't felt before. Disbelief, world-weariness and a healthy measure of disregard for human beings – not just Sam, but its own vessel as well.

 _I was going to heal you,_ Sam answers, _but I'm reconsidering, based on how you've been treating Bridget out there._

_Who's Bridget?_

Sam wishes he could roll his eyes in this plane. There are some things only a physical body is good for. 

_Your vessel._

_She is of no consequence._

This is the kind of angel Sam fears. He knows there are good angels, but this angel and all who think like it does, they are the ones he wants to get back into Heaven – as soon as possible. 

Sam turns on the angel with speed born of innumerable fights with monsters trying to kill him and a brother trying to mess with his stuff. The angel isn't used to wrestling – apparently that's not a way angels are trained to fight – so Sam has it in a nelson hold in no time flat. 

He pushes his grace out of himself and in a spiral around the angel, separating it from its vessel and ripping the angel bodily out of her, kicking and screaming. 

It's only a moment later when another angel appears in the ether, and it takes a moment for Sam to recognize Castiel. His beauty is blinding, but it's the imperfections that Sam notices – the scars across his celestial body and missing feathers in his wings. Sam promises himself he will heal all of Cas's scars as soon as he doesn’t have his hands full of belligerent angel.

_She is safe, Sam._

Sam nods and focuses inward, a feeling akin to closing his eyes. He looks around the angel with some other sense, one that only lives on this plane, and finding the angel's genetic blueprint. He sends his grace through the palms of his hands on the back of the angel's form, and even for this asshole, there is a sort of uncontainable joy that's unleashed as its wings spread.

He can feel the angel's uncertainty, too, disbelief not only that a human _could_ do such a thing as heal an angel, but also that he _would_.

Sam loosens his hold as the angel's emotional state swirls into brighter colors and away from the dark grey that had surrounded it. _We want to help, Kedar,_ Castiel says, with a voice that reminds Sam of a lion's roar. _We're healing the angels so we all can go home._

Kedar nods and Sam releases the angel. Sam's not sure why his conception of Kedar won't settle into a gender the way most of the angels he's dealt with do, but male and female simply doesn't seem to apply. He's okay with calling an angel 'it' – they're alien enough creatures that it doesn't feel like an insult – but he makes a mental note to find out what to call people with non-traditional gender expression. He thinks he might need those words in the coming months.

Kedar turns to Sam and bows deeply before raising its wings and flying off. 

Sam reaches out to Castiel, his proper name the only thing that suits his true form, and his grace stretches out in front of his hand, but Castiel intercepts him, turning him around under the spread of his wings and pulling him into a tight embrace. _We must go, Sam. Quickly._

And before Sam can blink, they're back at the cabin. It's deserted – Sarah, Kedar, and Bridget all gone. "Where is everybody?" Sam asks. 

"I returned Bridget to her home when Kedar released her, and Sarah was gone when I returned." 

He's staring at Sam, but not at his face, or eyes – at his chest. 

Sam laughs. The angel blade is still stuck in him. He can't even feel it.

Cas takes hold of the angel blade and pulls it out slowly, healing the wound with his own grace a little at a time. 

Sam laughs. It tickles. "Thanks, Cas, but you know that's not necessary, right? My grace is automatically healing me."

"No, I did not know that," Cas says, wiping the blade off on his trench coat and giving it to Sam. "But it's not reassuring. We need to do some research." Cas walks around the table, pulling out a chair and looking underneath it. "Someone has the excess grace."

Sam hadn't expected any less. If something can go wrong, it will. He doesn't know who Murphy is, but he's pretty sure Murphy's bad luck has nothing on the Winchesters.

"Oh well," Sam says. "Let's just grab our bags and get out of here." It's a good sixteen-hour drive back to the bunker, and Sam is not looking forward to it.

Cas narrows his eyes. "We need to talk about your grace, Sam."

"I thought we needed to hurry," Sam says. Usually he'd be on board with talking, but they've got hours in the car to hash over this stuff. 

Exasperation is evident in Cas's sigh. "We do. But I am not letting you slip out of this conversation. There are things we need to discuss once we return to the safety of the bunker."

"Fine," Sam says, heading to the bedroom to stuff their junk back into their duffels and take them out to the Impala. He tries to throw the bags into the trunk and curses himself when he realizes the keys are probably in Dean's pocket. "Damn it," Sam says, dropping the bags heavily onto Baby's trunk. "We have to go back to the bunker to get the keys from Dean."

"Why?" Cas asks, and suddenly they are in the angel plane again, the Impala a strangely solid shape here. It shouldn't surprise him, but it really, really does. As does the evidence that they are truly giants in their celestial bodies – the Impala is like a toy car, tiny, no more trouble to carry than a lighter or a pack of gum. He's annoyed at himself for focusing on the Impala because the trip is over in a heartbeat and Sam didn't even have a chance to catch another glimpse of Cas's true form before Cas parks the Impala in the garage impeccably.

Sam huffs out an amused breath. "I don't know why I didn't expect that," he says. Cas shrugs as if to say, _me neither._

"What is that place?" Sam asks. He's got his own names for it now, but he wonders what Cas thinks of it as; if there's a name for it.

"There have been many names for it over the years," he says. "But I think I like Apramanabha."

"Is that Sanskrit?" Sam asks, and he can't decide if he's amused or disappointed at the look of surprise Cas turns on him.

"Yes," Cas says. "Heaven of limitless light."

Sam nods. It's an apt description. "What is it really, though?"

Cas squints like he does when he's trying to figure out what the humans are talking about. Sam knows that a curious head tilt is next, so he just remains silent, waiting.

Cas does give him the head tilt, though it's a bit heavier than Sam would've expected, like Cas is actually trying to think of a way to make it comprehensible. "You could say it's the angels' genetic memory."

Several thoughts crowd into Sam's brain at once and he has to unjumble them before he can quiz Cas about that. "So, every angel is aware of everything that happens on that plane?" Suddenly his jaunts there seem like a very bad idea.

"To some degree or another, yes. And by healing us, you have had an effect on all angels. I can feel it myself – there's a new sensation in my very existence that was not there before. It is the essence of Sam Winchester."

Sam's mouth drops open. All of the angels have some part of him inside them now? That's creepy. And a little gross.

"It is not _gross_ ," Cas says, not even allowing Sam a half-second to bitch about the mind reading before going on. "It is beautiful. It is compassion and forgiveness and mercy. These are things angels are incapable of – and yet you have sown the seeds in us. Seth was right when he said you don't know what you've done."

Sam's not sure how he feels about this. It's strange to be thought of as compassionate and merciful after all the things he's done. His thoughts turn to Dean and the way they never quite forgive each other, the way they just keep moving forward, shedding pieces of themselves along the road as they go, like snakeskin made of bad decisions and unforgivable actions. They don't forgive, they just forget, as best they can.

Thinking of Dean brings his brother's emotions back to the fore. He's not sure how he suppressed them for the long moments he and Cas have been talking. Dean's worried and in motion. Pacing, probably. Kevin is curled into himself, scared, and Crowley is still remorseful, but irritation sits on top of it like a jagged surcoat. 

"Wait," Cas says, which is funny because Sam hadn't even realized he'd started moving toward the door that leads to the bunker, he just knows he needs to get to Dean. "We still need to talk about your grace."

Sam throws his hands up. He's worn out, exhausted by the breakneck pace of his days, the lack of rest in his nights. He just wants Dean to know he's okay so he can stop pacing, and maybe go spend a little time in his room, pretending that he can still sleep.

"I know you're tired, Sam," Cas says, and that is just the last straw. 

"Stop reading my mind, Cas," Sam shouts. "It's rude, and seriously, you don't want to be in here. _I_ wouldn't be in here if I had a choice."

Cas looks at him mutinously, and Sam knows there are monologues Cas is keeping inside – sometimes, he's worse than Dean at actually getting to the heart of what he wants to say. 

"This is all distraction," Cas says. "We can discuss your complete lack of self-regard or the impoliteness of reading minds later. Right now, we must discuss your grace."

Sam throws his hands up. "Fine! What! What is it about my grace?"

Cas brings his eyes up to Sam's, the flick of his gaze and all the intensity of eyes bluer than any human's should be making Sam swallow convulsively. "You're generating grace. You're creating more and more grace, every moment."

"What?" Dean asks from the doorway, and Sam jumps at the sound of his voice. "What did you say?" Dean closes the door and Sam can feel Cas roll his eyes as they wait for Dean to join them.

"Sam is creating grace," Cas says patiently, and Sam knows the truth of that statement right down to his bones. It's why he wasn't afraid of the angel blades, why he knows nothing could kill him now – the grace would just heal him. 

"And what does that mean, exactly?" Dean asks. Sam can feel his cautious optimism; Sam isn't visibly upset, so it's all a wash for Dean.

"It means that eventually, even a body as perfectly molded to this task as Sam's will be overcome. If I had to guess, I would expect it to explode."

Sam laughs. He can't help it. The idea that the grace is some sort of danger is ridiculous. "It's healing me," Sam says. "I'm pretty sure it's not going to let me explode."

Cas narrows his eyes and Sam can feel the frustration spiraling off him like a sandstorm. "It's built you a celestial body, Sam." Dean turns to stare at Sam, looking him up and down like he might be able to see it. "It's finding ways to use the grace up so that it doesn't overwhelm you."

"Uh," Dean says, putting up a finger, " _what_ built Sam a celestial body?"

Cas gives Dean a quick, nasty side-eye and says, "Whatever is producing the grace."

"A grace machine," Sam says, laughing at the shitstorm that is his life. It's always ten times worse than he was expecting. "You're saying that to close the gates of Hell, the trials built me into a grace machine." He laughs again. It gets better and better the more he thinks about it. 

He feels lighter now; everything in the room is awash in the grace's pale glow, and it's like that summer day that Dean put together an honest-to-God picnic basket full of fruit roll-ups and Coke and a jar of pickles and they went for a walk in the woods behind the old house they were staying in, spending the afternoon lying in the sun, next to the little creek that ran the edge of the property.

"Sam," Cas says, and Sam knows he has to turn away from the memory if he wants to see Cas, but he's not sure he wants to. It was so warm, he and Dean were so content for once in their lives…

"Sam!" 

It's not that Sam can't hear Dean, it's just that he's got young Dean right here with him, and maybe if he just steps into the grass, he can go back to being his angsty thirteen-year-old self, sipping Coke and splashing his brother and –

His face is wrenched away from the memory, and his mind reels for a second before the garage fills in around the edges of his vision. 

"Sam," Cas says. "What year is it?"

Sam squints at Cas. "Twenty-thirteen. Why?"

Cas frowns severely, and Sam can feel residual fear hiding behind Cas's flashing eyes. "Because you were about to time travel."

Sam opens his mouth to tell Cas he's being an idiot, but thinking back to how clearly he remembered Dean by the river, the smell of the pickles and the wet fizz of the Coke on his lip… he can feel his eyes get big and he puts a hand on Dean's shoulder. "I can time travel," he says, wondering if he can somehow access Dean's memories to bring them back to the nursery that night, kill yellow-eyes and save their mom and maybe then he would have memories of a picnic in the park with his whole family.

"No, Sam," Cas says. "No, you can't – you would fundamentally alter the world and your place in it. You and Dean would have to spend the rest of your lives in that reality, and you would not receive the benefit of the change – the Sam and Dean you save would not grow into you. They would be their own people, and the best you could do would be to envy them their blissful ignorance."

It doesn't sound that bad, honestly. Sam looks at Dean and when Dean meets his eyes, he knows – Dean would do the same thing, give some version of themselves a chance at a normal life, even if it couldn't be them, exactly.

"This world would suffer without you," Cas says, the desperation that's ringing in his voice obvious in the static showing up in his celestial body. "And I need your help to make Heaven right." 

Sam can feel the sense of urgency Cas has, as well as dread that he might lose the two of them. Sam reaches out and squeezes Cas's forearm, hiding a smile as Cas's angelic body thrums in response to Sam's touch, a soft pulse under the familiar warmth of his human body. Sam realizes this is restful; just being in contact with Cas calms and centers him.

"So what, then," Sam says, happy to be on an even keel again. "How do I get rid of this excess grace?"

Cas takes a deep breath and sighs it out. The whole room breathes with him, and Sam can feel Dean release some of the tension he's been carrying since Sam almost died. It feels like so much longer than two days.

"Time travel isn't a bad way to use grace," Cas says, "if you do it for informative reasons, and not personal ones." The idea feels like hitting the jackpot; being able to go back in time to see Lincoln deliver the Gettysburg address or Buddha's awakening, not to mention watching Gandhi –

"Healing the angels helped, too."

Oh – how could he forget he was going to heal Cas! He turns to Cas, gripping his arm tighter and concentrating on his wings, feeling Dean move in to support his human form even as his other form pulls his consciousness into the angel plane.

_Thank you, Sam, but please do not heal me._

Sam can nearly smell the brightness of Cas in this plane, the power of his angelic form not tied to the peculiarly human emotions he experiences in his vessel. He hadn't realized what power the human body held over the consciousness inside. _But Cas,_ Sam says, suddenly needing to do this, to show Cas some small measure of how much Cas means to him, to Dean, to everyone whose lives he's ever touched.

_Those scars make me who I am, Sam. I bear them proudly._

Sam moves his attention to Cas's wings, a section where the feathers are ruffled, some broken and a few missing. _Can I at least set your wings right?_

 _Sam._ The sound of his name is so full of love and appreciation that Sam feels pleasure in the waves of it crashing over his new, grace-built body. _I lost those feathers raising you from Lucifer's cage. I wouldn't trade the scars for anything._

Sam can't breathe at the words, the idea that Cas was permanently injured because of him, and what he did with the second chance Cas gave him, how he was disgusting and horrible and barely human, that part that lives in him still, a mocking, dark presence in the back of his mind, the one that gives him the strength to do the really terrible parts of the job.

He crumples, crashing back into the physical world and falling onto his brother, who guides him to the floor. He curls up, thankful for Dean's arms around him almost as much as for the mix of anger and pain Dean's feeling in Sam's defense.

"What did you do?" Dean asks Cas, his voice accusing and hot and then flipping immediately to solicitously concerned when he says, to the top of Sam's head, "Sammy? What's wrong? Are you okay?"

Cas crouches down, and Sam stares up at him. How could he have thought he was worthy of Cas? He's not even worthy of being human. "Sam," Cas says softly, reaching out, but Sam flinches, away from Cas and back into Dean. 

"Back off, Cas," Dean says, shoving Cas away. "Give him some space."

"Sam," Cas says, his voice pleading now. "Sam, you have to understand."

Sam shakes his head, and Dean shoos Cas again. "Fuck off, Cas. You can talk it out later. Sam doesn't want to deal with you right now."

Cas turns sad eyes on Sam, the lost feeling echoing through him again, and when he spreads his wings to leave them, Sam can't help staring at the twisted wreck of feathers that is all his fault.

~~~


	5. Chapter 5

~~~

The best thing about Dean is that when Sam needs to be alone, Dean leaves him alone. He doesn't like it, and he hovers nearby, but he stays out of Sam's room and lets him think.

Sam can tell Cas is right about the grace. He can feel it filling up the cracks inside him, making his human body feel weirdly weighted, even though he knows it's just overflow from his celestial one. He knows there are a million ways to use grace – Cas used to do all kinds of things back when he was all juiced up – so he grabs a pair of jeans on the top of his sewing pile and tries knitting the denim together with his mind. It works, though it looks worse than it might have if he had just done it with a needle and thread. He tries again on a flannel shirt of Dean's with more luck. It doesn't even really look like it's darned, though the material isn't quite the same color as the stuff around it. 

Unfortunately, mending clothes doesn't seem to take up very much grace, and he's not sure he wants to try something as drastic as time traveling without Cas's help. He goes round and round about what he can do, and the only thing he knows that takes a measure of grace is healing angels. 

He can't quite wrap his head around why, exactly, if his celestial body exists in the angel plane and his human body in the physical plane, the angels can't just find his celestial body and trace it to his human one. It doesn't really matter for him, except that if they came to the bunker, they might find Dean and do something drastic.

Sam's almost sure he could bring Dean back, but he doesn't want to put that to the test if he doesn't have to. 

"The bunker is warded, so angels can't trace you back here," Cas says from where he's leaning against a bookshelf in the corner of the room. "Forgive me for eavesdropping."

Sam just shakes his head. Eavesdropping. "Cas," he says, not even sure where to start.

"Please," Cas says. "Just hear me out."

Sam nods, mentally girding himself for whatever Cas has to tell him.

"Sam," Cas says, tilting his head and giving Sam the saddest eyes he's ever seen. He thought Dean had a way of holding the sadness of the world in his eyes, but with Cas, it's the entire universe. Sam wants to do nothing more than soothe Cas, tell him it's all going to be all right – which is pretty funny, because while he and Dean can pretend like champs, they both know it's a pile of horse shit.

"Spit it out, Cas." 

Cas spreads his wings, the gorgeous shimmery white of them making the room less gloomy. "Touch it," Cas says, offering his right wing to Sam. "The scar from breaking you out of Lucifer's cage."

It's almost malevolent, that scar. It's like it can feel Sam and it's trying to push him away. Sam touches the feathers around it first, feeling his heart speed up as Cas's reaction is instantly relayed to him, a feeling of desire so strong it nearly knocks him over. It's one of the things Sam likes best about Cas – he doesn't try to hide what's going on with him, or bury it, or ignore it. He just feels it and lets it be what it is. Sometimes Sam wishes for such simple, straightforward emotions.

He inches his fingers toward the scar, a feeling of dread rising in him as he gets close. When he finally rubs a finger over the end of a burnt feather, he gets a flash of memory, bright and clear and painful; Lucifer grabbing Castiel's wing, trying to get at Sam wrapped up inside.

Cas didn't let go, just let Lucifer burn feather after feather, blisters developing on the soft skin underneath, until something pulled Lucifer away just long enough for Cas to pull his wing in and get them out of the cage. 

Sam lands back in his body after the scene, breathing harsh and loud through his nose, trying to stave off the echoes of pain he can feel, even though Cas was shielding him from the worst of it. "Why?" Sam gasps. "Why would you want to keep that?"

Cas tilts his head at Sam, crossing the room to stare into Sam's eyes. Sam can hear the clockwork of Cas's thoughts, pieces dropping into place as he tries to figure something out. He raises two fingers to Sam's forehead and suddenly Sam is thrust back into the memory, but the searing pain is nothing more than a gnat, buzzing away at the edge of his consciousness. Everything else is focused solely on the body under Cas's wing, _his_ body, broken and desperately clinging to Cas, sobbing and hacking out breathy non-words, thanks and relief and yet some distrust all mingled together in the voiceless cry.

"I will let you heal me," Cas says, the two fingers on Sam's forehead steadying him as he comes back to himself, "if you will let me heal you."

Sam considers this. He wonders if the scars on his soul are similar, if they hold the actual memories of being in the cage, of Lucifer's torment as he lost his mind, of the slow way the grace burned him up to complete his sacred task. How will that change him? For the better? Or will he just make the same mistakes over again because he hasn't learned anything?

"You won't completely forget," Cas says. "I can heal most of the scar and leave enough to satisfy your guilt. You should be able to do the same for me."

Numbly, Sam nods his head. It's not that he feels he deserves any sort of forgiveness, or even forgetfulness, but if Cas is willing to let him lift some of the pain of his memory, Sam will do it, and accept his own healing as graciously as he can. 

Cas sighs, disappointment evident in the frustrated blast of it, but he ruffles his wing in Sam's hands. "Do it," Cas says, and Sam doesn't need to be told twice. He stares down at the burnt and twisted feathers, gathering his grace into his hands, letting it warm his palms and bleed out from his fingertips, impossible white lasers that he focuses on each feather, and then, once he gets to the bare spot, on each follicle, watching them grow under his hands, feeling the building joy in Cas. He doesn't have to go to the angel plane to find Cas's blueprint; he finds he just _knows_ how Cas is supposed to look, to feel. 

He leaves one follicle empty, a single chink in Cas's wingspan that will serve to hold the meaning of the memory, without the pain, one that only Sam will know about, only Sam will be able to find. 

When he finishes, he grips the feathers tight in his hands, feeling their softness up close and admiring the beautiful shifting colors that overlay the pure white. The sheen shifts in the light, with the slightest movement, an oil slick of colors. Sam stares down at them, mesmerized. "They're so beautiful, Cas," Sam murmurs. 

Cas shakes his wing a little and Sam reluctantly lets go so Cas can fold his wings up behind him. "They're quite common, actually," Cas says, and Sam just can't believe that. They're perfect. Cas smiles at Sam, a soft huff of a breath his only disagreement for the moment. He seems to think better of leaving it at that, though, and adds, "All the lesser angels have white wings. It's only the higher angels that have other colors – grey, black, gold, light blue. These are… as common as dirt, I think you would say."

Sam shakes his head, but before he can argue with Cas, there are two fingers on his forehead and he has to close his eyes against the brightness of Cas's grace. 

He can feel the shift in his soul; it's like old memories are being boarded up – but by a living thing. A skin growing over them, first making them opaque and then all but burying them underneath, a callus in his memory, something to rub over that doesn't hurt, but reminds him what happens when he makes poor decisions in the name of good.

It takes some unknowable amount of time, a single moment that feels like forever, but when Cas finishes with him, Sam feels nearly _whole_ for the first time in years. He wonders if the reason he's clung so hard to Dean is because he was trying to fill some emptiness inside. 

When he finally comes back to himself, he is in his body fully in a way he hasn't been for years, parts of himself closed off in an attempt to stop the hemorrhaging. He feels warm and protected, and it takes a while for him to realize he's on his side, his body in fetal position, safe. When he opens his eyes, he can see Cas's wing covering him like a blanket, curved to fit over his body.

"Cas," Sam breathes. There aren't words enough to express how Sam feels, how light and free and _content_. He has never had this sense of _rightness_ before, and the bone-deep satisfaction that he has done his very best, with whatever disadvantages he might have had along the way. It is so similar to the feeling he got when he died in the church, he can't help but wonder if that was God's intention for grace in the first place. "Thank you," he says, though the words fall vastly short of what he's feeling. 

"And you, Sam," Cas says. "Thank you for allowing me to show you how magnificent you are."

Sam opens his mouth to say something and realizes there is just no smooth way to answer that statement. He deflects instead, a time-honored Winchester tradition. "Thanks for letting me heal you, too," he says, petting Cas's feathers. Cas shudders, retracting his wing. Sam feels the loss like an ache.

There are a lot of mixed up feelings going on at the moment; some his and some Cas's, and he takes a moment to examine them more closely. He can feel Cas's desire, and it's strangely flattering, though clearly nothing can come of it. It's one thing to let someone down easy when you think they have a thing for you, and a whole different ballgame when you can feel the way their entire being is reaching out toward yours like they're a sunflower and you're the sun. He's never been loved like that, except by Dean, and that just makes the whole thing even weirder.

There is some small part of him that wants to give Cas his wish, to sit in the middle of the room and let Cas pour attention on him, like maybe that is all Cas wants. He doesn't know if he could keep himself from touching Cas's wings, though.

"Don't," Cas chokes out, stepping back. "Stop thinking, Sam, you're going to make it worse."

Sam thinks about that, turning it over in his mind as he stares at Cas's wings, tracing the rows of feathers, memorizing the patterns and movements. "Make what worse?"

There's a rasping sound that it takes a second to realize is Cas's harsh breathing, air scrubbing up and down his throat in a way that Sam has never associated with the angel before the last couple of days. Maybe being tied to Jimmy's body has changed the way he experiences physical sensations. Or maybe being fully human did that. Whatever it is, he's pretty sure Cas is the angel equivalent of horny. Sam traces a thought over the very tip of Cas's left wing.

"Sam!" Cas yelps, backing into the bookshelves. "I said stop it!"

"Sam?" Dean asks, bursting in without knocking. "I thought I heard…" He looks over at Cas, backed up against the bookcase by no more than Sam's thoughts about his wings. "…Cas."

Cas slips sideways along the wall, sliding behind Dean and out of the room. Sam smirks. 

Dean stares at Cas and then turns an utterly boggled look on Sam. "What did you do to him?"

Sam shrugs. "I healed him."

~~~

The problem with having a celestial body is that Sam no longer needs to sleep, or eat, or drink. He probably doesn’t need to shower, either, but right now he needs a break, and a shower is the only thing that appeals to him. He stands under the warm water, letting it cascade over his body, the sound drowning out everything else: his thoughts, Dean's worry, Cas's discomfort. 

He's taken long showers before and hasn't managed to run out the hot water in the bunker yet, so he just lets it run, reveling in the only peace he's had the last few days. 

Dean pokes his head in when Sam finally turns the water off. "You okay in there? Thought you might be trying to drown yourself."

"I'm fine, Dean," Sam says, debating adding a "fuck off" to the end, but Dean's concern feels so much like home, he's not willing to push it away just yet. "Kevin and Crowley in bed?"

"Yeah. Tucked the prophet in about an hour ago, and Crowley went right after."

Sam wants to ask about Cas, but he doesn't. He can't feel Cas, which means Cas is deliberately hiding from him, and he doesn't know if that's good or bad. He just knows it's a relief to not have Cas's weird feelings of longing and desire and protectiveness all pushing at him, especially when his own feelings are all mixed up and he can't always tell them apart from Dean's or Cas's.

It occurs to him that maybe in truth there is no difference in the way people are loved; that brotherly love and romantic love and the other one, the one he can never remember, maybe they're all the same, maybe love is just too big for humans and they have to narrow it down to fit inside their cramped little bodies, so tightly packed together, all the sinew and bone and organ. 

"So," Dean starts as Sam pulls on his boxers and jeans. Sam closes his eyes to keep Dean from seeing the way he rolls them. "What was up with you and Cas back there?"

"I healed him," Sam says, enjoying the return of Dean's gobsmacked surprise. Dean's really good about rolling with the punches, but even for him, it takes a minute. "His wings are just sensitive." 

There's a strong sense of relief and amusement rolling off Dean for about a microsecond before he shifts back into the worried anxiety that he's been feeling for the last couple of days. 

"So can we call him back? Because you look like you're starting to leak grace, there, Sammy." Dean's worry is intensifying so Sam goes over to the mirror to see what Dean's talking about. 

"Oh, shit," Sam breathes, pulling down his lower eyelids to see the grace coming out of his eyes. His whole face looks backlit like a skull prop for a Halloween party. Looking down at his hands, he can see that his skin is translucent, and he can see the grace pulsating below.

"Cas," Dean says, his worry getting up around hysterical levels, which is never good. "Cas, we need you here right now."

Cas appears behind Sam, easily in view when Sam looks in the mirror. "You need to release it," Cas says. "I can take some more."

He walks right up to Sam and puts his hands on Sam's face, spreading his wings to lift him just enough to kiss Sam without pulling Sam's face down to meet his. 

Sam's eyes slide closed, and Cas's tongue is pressing into his mouth, tiny licks like he's trying to lap Sam up. Desire washes over him, and he's pretty sure that it's not all Cas, that there's some part of him that's responding to Cas kissing him, that wants more, that… fuck, this is giving him an erection.

He pulls away quickly, leaning forward and pretending to breathe hard, like he's been running, but actually hiding his reaction to the kiss from Dean. He can feel Dean's tangle of emotions all mixed up with his and Cas's; easier to separate now that they're not kissing anymore.

Dean's are darker, there's hurt and betrayal under the same arousal as before, a scent, almost, of Dean's lust. There's some confusion, too, and suddenly Sam can see it. Jesus, how could he have missed that? Dean's in love with Cas. It's so completely obvious, and now Sam's… oh, fuck, _damn it_ , why does everything Sam touches turn to shit?

And maybe that's part of the reason Sam thought he wasn't good enough for Cas, because when Cas pulled Dean out of Hell, Dean was the righteous man, the savior of mankind, everything right and good, and Sam has never been more than a monster, broken at best and evil at worst. Castiel, the angel of the lord, the one that would only come when Dean prayed, who only did what Dean wanted, and why not? Sam was to be the devil's vessel, to be crushed under Michael's heel. The fact that he'd managed to take control and throw them into the cage, well, that'd been Dean's doing, too. 

"Sam, please." 

He can feel Cas's longing like a physical ache. He closes his eyes, the heartbreak of his own failures washing over him, all the more irritated by Cas's desire to touch him. Knowing Cas understands the value of touch should be a relief, but Sam knows he can't actually let it happen.

"Sam, you need to shed some grace. Please. Let me siphon some off."

Dean has been silent, everything he's feeling about Cas hidden behind concern for Sam. It's weird to feel it like this; he's been on the receiving end for so long that it's strange to feel it originating in his big brother, concern born of duty and obligation and maybe even a little love.

"Let me," Dean says, taking Sam's shoulders and turning him away from Cas. "I'm an archangel's vessel, too, right? So I can handle a little grace."

"No, Dean," Cas says, and Sam's glad for the shift in Cas's concern. Cas is afraid for Dean, that without whatever is protecting Sam, the grace will burn through Dean like it did when Sam was performing the trials. Sam knows that, but he thinks, maybe, just maybe, he can build Dean a celestial body just like the grace machine built his. 

"C'mere," Sam says, setting his hands on Dean's waist. "It's easiest if I kiss you; you okay with that?"

Dean is definitely not okay with that – the spike of discomfort that goes through him is just what Sam needs, exactly the thing that tells him it's going to be okay. Dean nods anyway. It's so strange to feel proof of just how Dean's brain works in situations like this, how he feels the fear and immediately dismisses it, anything for his Sammy.

"Sam," Cas says urgently, but Sam moves in, calling on his grace as he leans down to kiss his brother, pressing the grace forward into Dean's mouth, waiting for Dean to accept it before pulling them both into the other plane. 

Dean is just a shadow in this plane; a translucent silver version of himself, so Sam sets to work quickly with the grace. He lets it come out through his pores, attaching itself to those silken strands that tie him to his brother, the millions upon millions of ways they are interconnected, in this plane and that, their souls, their bodies, their very essences. And now their celestial bodies; Sam's grace will build Dean a form that is as perfect as Dean's human one. He doesn't push; he lets the grace spiral around Dean, taking its shape from whatever inspiration Dean gives it. It is beautifully symmetrical, with bright streaks of color woven into a deep blue of loyalty, facets of wolf and eagle and lion and ram, and a set of beautiful smoky grey wings. 

_Oh, Dean_ , Sam says. He understands that Dean is beautiful. It's easy for him to overlook because Dean's a gigantic douchebag a lot of the time, but when he's quiet or sleeping, Sam sees it sometimes – the skin-deep beauty everyone else sees and the bone-deep beauty he knows is his brother. Watching the grace weave Dean's metaphysical form, he knows why everyone always loves Dean; it's so much more than the superficial charm he wears like an ill-fitting suit.

Dean is still mostly in the physical plane; Sam's not sure, exactly, how to draw him into this one. His body reacts before he does, and he turns the parody of a kiss into a real one, tilting his head to fit their mouths together better and exploring with his tongue.

Dean reacts automatically, his tongue seeking out Sam's. Sam smiles. Controlling the physical from this plane is like puppeteering his own body, but he manages, putting his hands on Dean's face and yanking Dean forward. _Come with me, Dean_.

He can feel the shift when Dean lets go enough to allow Sam to pull him into the angel plane, and as Dean looks around, he can see the wonder in Dean's celestial body, a bright, happy yellow. _What is this place?_

Sam shrugs. _I call it the angel plane. I think it's a part of Heaven. Cas called it Apramanabha._

_You look different._

_Yeah._ Sam nods, still wishing he could see his own celestial body. _You should see yourself, Dean._

Dean reaches out – not a hand, though it feels like that, and suddenly their grace is entangled. It jolts Sam like an electric shock. He can feel where their bodies are still connected in the kiss back on the other plane. He shudders, and he can feel Dean gasp.

Before he can really process that, Cas appears in the angel plane, very close to the two of them. _Please,_ Cas says, _please stop._

He can feel Cas in the physical, standing just as close to him and Dean, and there is a strong sense of arousal, but it's only on that plane; his celestial body is shot through with colors that Sam can tie to concern and love and worry. 

_It's okay, Cas._ Sam reaches out his grace and touches it to Cas, at the same time he grabs Cas by the trench coat in the physical plane and pulls him into him and Dean. Dean doesn't miss a beat, just follows Sam's lead, his grace and his hand moving together to close the circuit in both planes.

Sam finds he can shift between the physical and metaphysical easily when the three of them are connected like this – like maybe they've opened a doorway instead of having to push through the membrane to connect the two parts of themselves. It changes everything.

Dean puts his hand on Sam's face, gently, and pulls back from the kiss. He swipes his thumb across Sam's cheekbone, and Sam can feel in Dean's grace how much Sam means to him. It's so much more than words could ever express, and Dean surprises him again when Sam realizes it's not some macho thing that Dean never says, "I love you" but rather a feeling that it's not enough, there could never be the right words to describe what's between them.

Dean turns to Cas and full-on smirks, which is a flash of kelly green in the celestial plane, and Sam can't help laughing, causing a rippling sensation in his grace that feels like bubbles coming to the top of a glass of champagne. 

"Wait," Cas says, and Sam can feel the way Cas's breath catches, resonating in the celestial plane as hope, a blinding pearlescent white.

"Don't think so, Cas," Dean says, and pulls Cas in for a kiss. The way he twists sideways rubs his hip up against Sam's thigh, and Dean shifts just slightly so Sam's erection is pressed against Dean's hip. Shit. Sam hadn't even realized he was still hard.

For a half-second, which feels like an eternity, Sam has doubts. He can feel the connection between Cas and Dean, the profound bond that his grace is actually entwined in at the moment, and he pulls back, withdrawing in both planes slowly, while his brother and Cas are distracted.

Not as distracted as he thinks, though, because at some point Cas had snuck his hand onto Sam's waist and now he has an iron grip on Sam's physical body. Dean just keeps kissing Cas, but he shifts his hip up, sliding it along Sam's hard-on and making Sam's eyes cross. Cas, on the other hand, does some fancy move with his grace, pushing it into Sam's celestial body and spiraling it around inside, a feeling similar to a caress, and Dean, ever the quick learner, does the same, and Sam shudders, though he can't actually tell if it's in the physical plane or celestial. He can feel the smiles of both Dean and Cas in their grace, though.

He can finally see the physical arousal in the metaphysical plane, a bright acid green. He thinks his whole celestial body is probably this color, though it's just a thick brushstroke in Dean and a delicately etched pattern shot through Cas's grace.

A small part of him, probably the only good part, thinks they should stop. He hates that it's so small, and so easily ignored, because he can't help rubbing himself against his brother and impatiently waiting his turn to kiss Cas. 

Dean's bad at sharing, though, and Sam's pretty patient, so he's content to watch the shifts in their grace as Dean and Cas continue kissing. Sam knows the exact moment that Dean goes for second base – or is it third? He never really got the baseball metaphors and it's tough to judge with a guy, anyway – because the swirly pattern of Cas's arousal extends through his entire grace at the same time as he sucks in a breath, a sound Sam can hear against Dean's mouth.

And that is just it. Sam has had it with waiting. "Deeeeeean," Sam whines, a carefully chosen pitch that Sam knows has a roughly eighty percent chance of Dean giving him what he wants because it's easier than listening to Sam whine. He doesn't have to say, "it's my turn," because that's understood – Dean always knows exactly what Sam wants.

Dean laughs a little against Cas's mouth, breaking the kiss, and says, "All right, Sammy." Then he forcibly turns Cas to face Sam, which is a little more obliging than Sam was expecting, though he's not complaining. 

It isn't until Dean's hip grinds against his hard-on again that he realizes Dean's set them up to all be able to frot against each other, and Sam groans and leans in, kissing Cas intentionally for the first time – though as Cas's grace curls around Sam, gently squeezing, he wonders if they've been accidentally making out in the angel plane when they traveled and Sam didn't even know it, because the way Cas falls into the kiss feels like he's coming home.

It isn't until he's kissing Cas that he realizes there's a background burble of almost-words in the hum he's heard since he got his grace, music of sentiments too grand to fit into human bodies or human words, the way Dean is fiercely protective of Sam and Cas is constantly in dawning awe of Dean, and as soon as Sam's mind lights upon that thought, he can feel Cas turn his attention solely to Sam. He can feel the same emotion, like slow-motion photography of a flower blooming, but this time about Sam himself. Admiration, devotion, an abiding fondness and a frantic, almost puppy-like need for Sam's attention. It's the only thing that keeps Sam from being completely overwhelmed by Cas's laser-focus attention.

Sam grins into the kiss, concentrating back on the physical plane, not terribly surprised to find that Dean has got his hand up Cas's shirt and down the back of Sam's jeans. 

There's a complete shift in a split second. Dean stops moving, on high alert, his physical and celestial bodies both incredibly still. Less than a second after that, Cas spreads his wings wide and crashes into them, a force that pushes them completely into the metaphysical plane and then immediately back out of it. They land in soft grass, their momentum tumbling them into a heap on the ground, Sam and Dean next to each other with Cas on top.

Being completely on the physical plane brings a million things to the fore, not least how he ended up in the middle of a park somewhere with Dean's hand down his pants and Cas lying on top of them, too embarrassed to look either of them in the eye.

Dean's emotions are complex too, but he just pulls his arms free and shoves Cas off, sitting up in the grass. "Where are we?"

"Barcelona," Cas answers. He sighs heavily. Sam can feel his disappointment with himself. "The other angels caught wind of what we were doing and had nearly found us. I had to move us somewhere else on the physical plane or they could have followed the connections from our celestial bodies to our physical ones."

"And found the bunker," Dean says. "So this is angel travel." He looks around for a second, and spreads his wings. Sam is uncontrollably envious of Dean's gorgeous smoky wings, and Dean just looks at him and smirks. "You have your own, you know."

It hadn't even occurred to Sam that he might have wings; he's never seen his celestial body, and has no clue what it looks like. It just figures – he spends so much time in his mind that he forgets his physical body sometimes. It's why he runs, to bring himself back to his body using the rhythm of movement and breath. 

Dean's always been more physical, an understanding of how his body moves in the world, a trust of that body and the way he can use it. Of course he naturally understands his celestial one too. Sam's envious all over again. Dean chuckles.

"Not that I mind you appreciating my assets," Dean says, "but there is information overload in here." He points to his head. "Jesus, how do you deal with hearing all this all the time?"

Before Dean can answer, Cas spreads his wings again and they are jumped through the metaphysical plane into Australia – Uluṟu; a place Sam recognizes immediately because he has always wanted to see it. Before he can appreciate it, though, Cas has skipped them through three more places, including somewhere in China, he thinks, and a really hot, wet jungle. They finally land on a familiar looking road, next to an abandoned truck. 

"Where are we?" Sam asks. The road is familiar, but that means it could be anywhere in the lower forty-eight. 

"Highway 182," Dean answers without any hesitation or doubt. "Outside Holdrege."

Sam nods. That's a two-hour drive back to the bunker. Cas disappears and reappears a minute later with a container of gas. "Let's go."

~~~


	6. Chapter 6

~~~

The trip back to the bunker is silent and uncomfortable. It's an old Ford truck, just a single bench seat in the cab, so Sam shoves Cas in the middle and turns into the door so he can at least give Cas a little room. Of course it has an old on-the-floor stick shift, so Cas has to spread his legs to let Dean shift the thing through the lowly three gears as the engine cycles up.

Sam's barefoot and shirtless, so it's not like he's any more comfortable. Of course Dean is completely at home behind the wheel. Figures he'd work out how to shut out the excess information by driving. Sometimes Sam really hates his brother.

He's got a lot of mixed up feelings about what happened between the three of them, but he doesn't know how to shield his thoughts or feelings yet, so he sets it aside for examination later. Dean is currently riding his road hypnosis, though there's an undercurrent of relief every time he steals a glance at Sam, so he figures at least he's dumped off enough grace to set that worry aside for the moment.

More pressing is the absence of thoughts and feelings from Cas, an emptiness so deliberate Sam can't help but feel lonely. He hadn't realized he'd been reading Cas as much as Cas had been reading him; it's a strangely automatic sort of habit.

He's tracking Dean even now; there's a single-mindedness to him while he's driving, which is another familiar echo of something he knows in his bones about Dean. He likes it when Dean's feelings resonate so completely with his own. Knowing he understood Dean in these ways even when they were both human makes him unaccountably happy. He likes finding out he was wrong about Dean, too, like the complexity that Sam had not given Dean credit for, but once in a while it's nice to know he actually knows Dean in some fundamental ways.

"Thinking awful loud over there, Sammy," Dean says. 

Sam ignores him. He thinks. It's what he does. He keeps his thoughts from straying toward the last hour or so by examining Cas's impenetrable wall of silence. He can feel the smoothness of it; a shield of some sort. Obsidian, he thinks, though he doesn't know why. He can't feel a particular color associated with it. He stabs at it with thoughts and feelings and mental images of running into it headfirst. That last gets a grumpy laugh out of Cas.

_Are you looking for something in particular, Sam?_

He can hear the words directly in his brain, honest to god telepathy. He thinks hard at Cas. _Why are you shutting me out?_

Cas smiles, nodding slightly. Sam thinks he might be proud of how quickly Sam caught on, though it's just a guess now that he can't read Cas's emotions. _We're all avoiding things in our own ways._

Sam raises an eyebrow. So they are. It's just never felt so empty before when he was drifting in his own head. It's a little scary, how quickly he got used to Cas's constant presence in his mind. It's not even weird having Dean in there, despite the fact that there's a lot he really doesn't want his brother to know. It had been strange having Cas just hanging out in his brain, but now that he's gone, Sam finds he misses it like an ache. 

Within a few minutes, he's back to poking at their weird multi-plane threesome, so he looks around for a distraction. He glances over to check on physical Dean and Cas and sees that Cas's wings are around them both, holding them. They pass through Dean's smoky wings, which are folded up neatly behind him. 

Sam concentrates on his celestial body, trying to feel his wings, see if he can maybe spread them so he can get a look. He doesn't know what he's looking for, though, and it's frustrating to know he has them but to be utterly unable to do anything with them.

Cas sighs loudly and puts a hand on Sam's back. It's just for a moment, though, because he slides it off of Sam's physical body and onto his celestial one, and oh! There are his wings! He can feel them now, extra appendages that tingle like they've been asleep. He raises his shoulders because it makes the wings shift and he can feel them move. It's going to take some practice to get used to them. He doesn't know how to spread them, either, and another stray jealous thought of Dean's ease with his new body escapes him, making Dean chuckle. Apparently Dean is tuned in to thoughts specifically about him.

"It's like…" Sam can feel Dean groping for words to describe the sensation. "Lifting your shoulders but on the inside." 

Sam laughs. That is completely inaccurate, but Sam got the gist of it from the sensation inside Dean's head as he spread his wings, looking for a way to describe it. Sam duplicates it with ease, an up-and-out movement of his celestial body that he can't help shrugging into. He knows his shoulders can't actually help, but he has a hard time moving only his celestial body and not his physical one.

He has a longer wingspan than Cas; it probably shouldn't be a surprise, since he's a head taller than the angel, but it really is. His wings are thinner, the long feathers shorter than Cas's. They're a deep, glossy black, and Sam's a little disappointed. It feels like they're just one more reminder of how Sam is not worthy of a gift like a celestial body. 

_No, Sam,_ Cas interrupts his thoughts. _Your wings are beautiful and unusual. Only the higher-ranking angels have wings that aren't white. Most angels have plain white wings like me._

Sam's not sure he believes that; Cas's wings aren't just white, they're luminous, they catch and reflect all the colors, unlike his, which do nothing of the sort. And he's not sure he wants to know what other angels might have black wings. 

_Joshua, for one,_ Cas says. _And not Lucifer, if that's what you're thinking. His were silver, like moonlight. The most beautiful wings of all the angels._

There's a melancholy to Cas's thoughts, and Sam shifts in his seat, folding his wings back up. His feelings about Lucifer are complex, and it makes it harder to cope when he thinks about the raw deal Lucifer got in Heaven. 

"Sorry," Cas says out loud. 

Dean glances over. "Sorry about what?"

 _Don't tell him,_ he thinks quickly at Cas. _He's never been able to deal with my time in Hell or after, and knowing I have sympathy for the devil isn't going to help._

Cas gives a quick, sideways glance at Sam and says to the windshield, "Sorry about not taking us directly back to the bunker. Flying leaves signs where you cross between planes."

"Nah," Dean says magnanimously as Sam sends a relieved _thank you_ to Cas. "It was smart. Can't have any of those guys figuring out where our secret hideout is."

Sam sinks back into the seat, staring out the window like he has on a million road trips, and lets his mind wander as the road unspools in front of them.

~~~

By the time they get back to the bunker, even Dean's studied calm is shattered. After an hour spent trying to hide his feelings from Dean, Sam realizes that Dean's trying to hide his feelings as well – with much less success. He can hear Dean's thoughts much clearer now. Before, he'd gotten muddled impressions of what Dean was feeling. Now, he gets bright impressions of the emotions, and sometimes even words and sentences.

Dean wonders what he is now. Apparently he's wondered what Sam was for the last four or five years, but it wasn't until right now that Dean realized _he_ is something different, something not quite human. Sam smirks. If nothing else, all the shit that's happened to him over the years makes him more adaptable than Dean. Dean's had a lot less practice getting used to being a freak.

The more riled up Dean gets, the easier it is for Sam to hide his own feelings. He tries to create Cas's thought barrier, with more or less success, gauging by how much Dean misses his presence in his mind. 

Once they get into the bunker, Dean's worry goes down a notch. He takes a left off into the sleeping quarters, single-mindedly set on checking on Kevin and Crowley.

After a quick detour to the showers to retrieve the rest of his clothing, Sam sits down at his computer, itching for something normal to do, and starts researching warding spells for the bunker.

~~~

Sam can feel Dean restlessly wandering around the bunker, cranky because he feels tired even though he knows he's not. He recruits Cas to distract Dean while Sam goes over the spells with Crowley somewhere it wouldn't be weird for the two of them to be together at any given time. The kitchen.

A lot of the ingredients are herbs, so Sam gathers them while he's there, wishing for good weather and the ability to figure out where the bunker begins and ends from the outside, which he hasn't been able to do very effectively before.

It takes three days and all four of them for one of the anchoring spells, and some complicated Enochian that Sam has to practice phonetically, but they pull off a combination protection and warding spell Magnus would've been proud of. 

Cas brands them all with entry sigil on their scapulas, surrounded by another spell that means if they try to enter while possessed, they'll be knocked back. The feeling of calm that comes over him when it's complete is immense, and the feeling of relief when he walks back into the bunker is even more so.

~~~

Once the bunker is safe, Sam sits down at his computer to see what the world looks like without demons.

Unfortunately, the world is a mess, because the angels are wreaking havoc. Sam starts making a list of angel cases, and puts together a mass text message to send to every hunter he knows. By the time Dean comes back into the room, he has eleven different cases just in the U.S., and is starting on cases in other countries.

"Holy crap," Dean says, eloquent as ever. 

"Yeah," Sam says. "Pass this text on to every hunter you know. Might save a life." 

_Be careful of rogue angels. Liquefied organs and burnt eyes are symptoms. If you hear of angel stuff going down, text Sam or Dean Winchester. If you get stuck in a bad situation with an angel, pray to Castiel with your exact location. This may save your life, so don't hesitate. Forward this message to every hunter you know._

Sam sends the text, waiting for the inevitable pile of texts and phone calls he's going to get in return. He doesn't have to wait long – Jody's calling him less than a minute later.

"Hey, Jody," he says, waiting for the inevitable screed.

 _"Sam,"_ she says, and he can hear the "you've been naughty" dripping from her voice. _"What have you done?"_

"Well actually," Sam says, suddenly puffed up with pride, because in this whole mess he'd forgotten – _they closed the gates of Hell!_ "We closed the gates of Hell. So no more demons roaming the Earth."

 _"What?"_ Jody screeches, and he pulls the phone away from his ear and puts it on speaker. _"Are you okay? Is Dean okay?"_

"Yeah, we're fine," Dean answers. "Hi Jody."

_"Don't 'hi Jody' me, mister. What the hell is this about rogue angels, then?"_

"We thought we were closing the gates of Heaven too, but we got duped by an asshole angel," Dean says. Sam can feel Cas's overwhelming regret, and he's sure Dean can too, but Dean's never been one to coddle people. Sam glances over his shoulder at Cas and gives him an encouraging smile. Cas accepts it with a slight nod of recognition, but the feeling of regret and self-doubt remains.

"That meteor shower the other night?" Sam mentions. "That was angels falling from Heaven. So they're here, pissed off and hurt. Keep your eyes open, but don't engage, okay? Text us, or pray to Castiel."

 _"Who the hell is Castiel?"_ Jody asks, and Sam blinks. Have they really never told Jody anything about Cas?

"He's…" He looks over his shoulder at Cas, and the flagellation has taken a momentary break as he raises a curious eyebrow in Sam's direction. "He's an angel we've worked with a long time. A good guy. He can get us to you with a snap of his fingers, so if you get in trouble, pray to him, you hear me?"

There's a weighty silence on the other end of the line before Jody says, _"Okay. If you trust him, I trust him."_

That's not the truth of their relationships with most non-humans, Sam realizes, but he believes Cas would help anyone that reached out to him, simply because that's who he is. "He's one of the good guys, Jody. We'll introduce you next time we see you. Keep your eyes peeled, though, there are rogue angels all over, and they're dangerous."

 _"Just how many angels fell?"_ Jody asks.

"All of them," Cas says.

~~~

Charlie, Krissy, Tracy, Rudy, Mackey, and six others call or text over the next hour. Sam's sure he'll get a bunch more calls and texts in the upcoming days, but they have too much to do to worry about it. They do get Charlie to agree to come to the bunker and babysit while they hunt so they don't leave Kevin alone with Crowley. Crowley begs to come along, but he'd just be a hindrance.

They drive to the first case on the list – a smiting in Flint, Michigan – and Sam heals the angel when they finally find it, hiding out in the back seat of an abandoned junker at a truck stop. They put the Impala in storage, drive a junker to the case next door in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, and Cas flies them to the cases after that. They find and heal the angels within hours of arriving, and apparently their jaunts through the angel plane aren't long enough for the rest of the angels to get a bead on them.

The first prayer that comes in is from a hunter that knew their dad – Tara Bromley. Sam's in the middle of healing a group of three angels, so Cas grabs Dean and takes off. Having the two of them out of easy thought-reading range makes it difficult to concentrate on the task at hand, but Sam buckles down and finishes, sending a frantic prayer to Cas to come pick him up.

Cas is there in moments, taking him to Dean and Tara and two pissed off angels gearing up to smite them both. Sam steps in front of Dean and takes the raised hand of the closest angel, using it to pull it into the metaphysical plane. Its name is Hannah, and it is surprised at Sam's… everything. 

_How are you doing this?_ it asks.

_Doing what?_

_Healing me._

Sam shrugs, or at least, he thinks he sort of shrugs. _I can see the damage and heal it. I don't know._

_But you're not an angel. And angel grace can't heal this damage, anyway – we've tried._

Sam shrugs again. _Maybe it's because I have a soul_ and _grace?_ That's not right at all, Sam realizes as soon as the thought is formed, but he doesn't have time to think about it before Hannah speaks again. 

_So what are you, then?_ it asks. _Because you are neither human nor angel._

 _I could ask you the same thing,_ Sam asks. _You don't have gender, but your name is female._

Hannah is nearly healed, and the laugh that he can feel through its wings is genuine. _That was my first vessel's name. I never had a name of my own. Very few angels do; it's why many of us use human names._

Sam is flabbergasted. Angels don't have names? And they didn't want to choose names for themselves? 

_There was no need for names before humans._ From Hannah, this doesn't sound as threatening as it might. _We knew each other in every way and were in constant communication. We knew the frequencies and intensities of everyone's form and grace. Names are for the humans._

Sam completes the healing, taking his hands off of Hannah and watching it spread its wings, much like every angel he's healed has. 

_Thank you, Sam Winchester._

_You're welcome, Hannah. If you could spread the news that we are healing angels, it would be greatly appreciated. I'd prefer my brother and Cas not get smited if I'm not there to fix them._

Hannah looks over his celestial form shrewdly then. _You were built to complete the trials,_ it says. _To pull one of the great levers._

_Yes._

_And you are still producing grace. This is how you are able to heal us. How did you not die, Sam Winchester?_

Sam shrugs. _I think I did. I think I just got kicked back when Metatron closed the gates of Heaven. I'm not sure why I got stuffed back in my body, but I'm going to do what I can to get the angels back upstairs. We want to be your allies in this._

_Yes,_ Hannah says. _We would be proud to be your allies, Sam Winchester. Do you know how Metatron closed the gates of Heaven?_ He _did not pull one of the great levers. And that would not have shut out your soul, at any rate._

That’s news to Sam. _He tricked Cas; he and Cas were working together to do three tasks. Cas thought they were to close the gates of Heaven, but they were ingredients for a spell. Cas's grace was the last ingredient. That was when the angels fell._

_He must have closed the gates manually right after._ Hannah's celestial form is darkening, gunmetal grey taking over the yellows and greens that had been there as Sam was healing. _That is the only way that souls would be prevented from entering Heaven._

 _We should discuss this with everyone,_ Sam says. _And I need to heal your friend._

Hannah nods, herding Sam in close to her with her wing, and flying them back to Tara's shop. She lands between Dean and the other angel, gently settling a hand on the angel's arm, making him lower it. "They are allies, Josiah. Sam Winchester can heal you."

Josiah is definitely male; he has gender more definitely than most angels. Some angels seem to carry preferences for vessels of one gender or another, but this one clearly would only enter a male body. Sam doesn't like him very much.

"Can you heal in this plane?" Hannah asks.

"I don't know," Sam answers honestly. "I've never tried." He turns to Josiah and looks him over. It's the genetic blueprint he's only ever seen in the other plane; that's what he needs to guide his grace. "Can I hold your wing?"

Josiah raises an eyebrow, but extends his nearly featherless wing forward to within reach of Sam's hands. Sam takes hold, trying to see the blueprint, the celestial body's DNA, something that will tell him what Josiah is supposed to look like. He sees it as he turns inward, focusing his attention on himself, a blip in the corner of his eye. When he faces it full on with his physical eyes, it disappears, so he has to glance at it sideways and use other senses to get a feel for it.

"Good," Hannah says. "Castiel, we need to talk about Heaven."

The conversation is going in Sam's physical ears, but it's just barely a murmur in the back of his mind. It takes too much concentration to heal, he can't afford to pay attention to what the rest of them are talking about. It's going well, though, he can feel Cas's affection for Hannah – a relief, maybe, for someone actually believing him and wanting to be his ally, and Dean's downgrade from high alert to suspiciously hopeful. Tara is overwhelmed, but Sam can hardly blame her.

Sam finishes the healing and Josiah's gratitude is immense. There's a small amount of regret in it – Sam's felt that before from angels that doubted him – and a sense of awe. Sam brings his eyes back to Dean and Cas; he doesn't know what to do with this yet, this sense that angels are in awe of him. His power, maybe, but that's not the impression he gets. It's more like they can now comprehend the idea of helping someone just because they can. He wonders what, exactly, angels were like when they were first created. So sure of purpose, so cold and unyielding.

Cas puts a hand on his shoulder and Sam shakes off his thoughtfulness to catch the tail end of what Hannah and Cas are talking about.

"…so we will call you if we find more of our host that need to be healed," Hannah says, "and we will continue to examine the paths into Heaven, to see if there is a way to get us back in. Then we will have to deal with Metatron."

"I still can't believe Metatron is such a douche," Dean says, shaking his head. "He seemed okay – hell, he saved Kevin!"

There's awkward mumbling around the store for a moment or so, and finally, Hannah and Josiah announce their departure. "We will be in touch."

After they take off, Tara sinks down into a chair and blows out a breath. "I've seen a lot of crap in my life," she says, "but that takes the cake. What in the hell have you boys been up to?"

~~~

After a quick check-in call to make sure Charlie and Kevin are okay, Cas flies them to the next case on Sam's list. It's nice, Sam finds, to have such single-minded purpose. Healing the angels seems to be taking up enough grace that he's not overflowing, and moving from case to case means they don't have to deal with the awkwardness from the last time it _was_ overflowing.

It's been almost two weeks since Sam closed the gates and he's finally figured out how not to miss sleeping, but Dean is dragging, looking tired and worn. Sam looks at him, to make sure everything is okay and it's just the habit of sleeping Dean is missing, not anything else.

He is shocked to see that Dean's celestial body is patchy, fading out in some places and gone in others. His wings look patchy, like fog dissipating as the sun rises.

"Dean, do you feel okay?" he asks urgently.

"I'm fine," Dean says, waving it off like Dean always does. "What's next?"

"No, Dean, you're not fine," Sam says, grabbing Cas's sleeve to get his attention. "Do you see that? What's wrong with him?"

Cas barely glances at Dean, looking away before he could have possibly seen was Sam was talking about. He's about to bitch when Cas coughs delicately. "I wasn't going to mention it," Cas says, like Dean's slip is showing.

"Dude, he looks sick! You have to mention it!"

"I am not sick," Dean growls, but they both ignore him.

"He doesn't have grace, Sam. Building the celestial body was a nice thought, but it can't be maintained without grace. It will fade and he will become human again."

"So give me some grace," Dean grumps. "It's not like you don't have plenty to spare."

"Wait," Sam says, looking closer at Cas. He looks a little duller, too, like his shine has worn off. "Does the grace I gave you fade as well?"

Cas shrugs again, like it's impolite to mention it.

"Damn it, Cas," Sam says, sounding so much like Dean they both turn to stare at him. "Get us to a motel. We need somewhere private for a few hours."

~~~


	7. Chapter 7

~~~

It's a plush suite, high up in a hotel overlooking an unfamiliar skyline. "Where are we?" Sam asks.

"Atlanta," Cas answers, and Dean's "huh" of surprise pretty much sums it up.

"How long do we have?" Sam asks. He doesn't know how much time this is going to take, and he has no idea how much spare grace he has. He's almost positive that if he gives Dean and Cas all of his grace, he'll make more, but he doesn't want to be interrupted while it happens. 

Dean drops down onto the couch, spreading his legs a little and letting his head drop back to rest on the back of the couch. "Oh, man," he says. "This feels good. I miss sleeping."

That makes Sam turn his head to look at Dean more closely, verifying his physical body is okay and letting his eyes slide sideways until they catch on his celestial body, cataloging all the faded or missing areas in his peripheral vision.

Once he knows what needs to be done, he moves over to stand in front of Dean. "You ready?" he asks, and Dean's eyes snap open. He'd been half a minute from sleeping, probably. 

Sam can feel Dean's nerves kick in, which cranks up his own anxiety a notch. This is the thing they're not talking about, the thing that's been ever-present in the back of Sam's mind but never in the front, not where Dean or Cas could see.

Dean swallows and nods, and Sam acts without thinking. He straddles Dean's legs and sets one knee down on the couch, sliding his leg in until his knee is next to Dean's hip. He waits for the penny to drop in Dean's mind, when Dean realizes what Sam's going to do. He doesn't have to wait long.

"Little big for sitting on my lap, Sammy," Dean says, and it's funny, how Sam can hear the normality of it in Dean's voice, the forced calm, but behind it, he can hear Dean's heartbeat, fast and thready. He smiles, because he knows Dean knows that he knows, a feedback loop that's dizzying in its circuitousness, and brings his other knee up, settling himself on Dean's lap, his ass on Dean's bony knees. He's still taking some of his own weight, his thighs a little uncomfortable, but he concentrates on Dean, watching as he tips his head back to rest on the couch, his neck long and his mouth open just a little bit.

"Okay?" Sam asks, because he needs Dean to make the choice. He needs to be sure whatever happens is something Dean is going into with his eyes open.

Dean holds his eyes for a long moment, and the feeling Sam gets is stability. Dean is a rock Sam can rely on, use as the anchor to all his wandering thoughts. Dean is a constant, he will be with Sam as long as there is any part of either of them still alive. 

Sam nods. "Okay."

The grace is much easier to move now. With all the practice healing angels, Sam can get it to go where he wants with a fair amount of ease. He brings it forward into his mouth and bends down to kiss his brother. He can hear the heavy thump of Dean's heart, feel anticipation and dread warring for control. He smiles, because he can't tell if that's him or Dean, or maybe both of them. 

He closes his eyes, using his other senses to assess the state of Dean's celestial body. He can't quite see it, exactly, but he can feel it, and he'd mapped it before, so he knows where the grace needs to go to make Dean whole. He can feel Dean's hesitation in the stiffness of his limbs. It's weird enough to be sort-of kissing Dean, but then just sitting there, their mouths pressed together with nothing actually happening between them is even weirder, and he knows Dean's torn between doing something about it and being thankful that he's not _really_ kissing his brother.

There's a third feeling too, something dark and forbidden and something Sam knows for a fact is not coming from him. He doesn't know if it's Dean or Cas or both of them, but he can feel it growing along the edges of his own emotional landscape, like the first frost in winter. 

It's Cas, he decides, after he listens to it for a moment, and gets a taste of the shape of it in his mind. He'd know if it was Dean; he would've known it before. Dean's an open book where Sam is concerned. There's no way Sam would've missed Dean looking at him with intent, or even curiosity.

He focuses back on healing Dean's celestial body. He'd been passing grace to Dean – filling up his tank. He pulls the grace back, directing it to his hands, ending the parody of a kiss with Dean and concentrating on Dean's wings so he can re-form them. It's a little like playing with soap suds, making shapes out of the ether, turning them into Dean's wings, all smoke and mirrors, but close. Beautiful. Dean shivers as Sam passes his hands along the shape of them, the fine not-really-bones and delicate almost-skin, and Sam smiles. Maybe wings are just very sensitive. Or maybe other people's wings are, since he can't even feel his most of the time. 

He lets his eyes drift shut, watching Dean's celestial body through slitted eyes and directing the grace to circle him and patch together the rough spots. He can feel Dean's heartbeat slow as the grace continues to wash over him, his muscles relaxing and his whole body sinking into the couch. 

It isn't until Cas puts his hands on Sam's waist that he realizes Dean isn't sinking into the couch, Sam is unintentionally pulling their celestial bodies into the angel plane. "Stay here," Cas says, right in Sam's ear, and he is snapped back into his body with enough force that he should smash into Dean, and hard enough to hurt.

He's suspended by Cas's hands and wings, though, and the fine trembling he feels in them seems to infect him, and he can't suppress a shiver. Dean's hands have come up too, deeply-ingrained self-defense, and suddenly Sam is suspended between them, and the weirdness of a moment before, where he was not-really kissing his brother, is shifted sideways into an ocean of desire. It's Cas's hands on him, he knows, because he's felt this from Cas before when they touched, and with the exception of that whatever-it-was in the bunker a week ago, Cas has purposely not touched Sam, keeping their physical and celestial bodies well clear of each other, except when absolutely necessary, and then he'd been all business, transporting them from one angel sighting to the next.

Cas is close behind him, his body pressing into Sam's back, weighing on him, pushing him forward into Dean, who is staring up at him, his eyes flicking back and forth between random points of interest – Cas, over Sam's shoulder, Sam's throat, Sam's mouth – before coming back to meet Sam's eyes.

"Finish healing your brother," Cas says, the breath behind the words stirring the hair by Sam's ear. Sam shivers again, closing his eyes and reaching out his grace to connect with Dean's celestial body. His wings are healed, and most of the lower portion of his body, it's just the facets, which are centered around his head, so Sam leans in, putting his hands on Dean's face to guide him, hearing Dean suck in a breath when his thumb accidentally brushes Dean's lips.

He kisses his brother again, this time for real, letting his tongue curl into his brother's mouth. He's not surprised when Dean's meets it, not tentative at all because that just wouldn't be Dean – if he does something, he does it full throttle. Sam concentrates on winding grace through their kiss, finding the different facets, wolf and lion, eagle and ram; loyalty, ferocity, pride, and stubbornness, all things he knows about Dean but are still strange to see codified in this way. 

Whenever his focus slips, he can feel Cas squeeze his waist, but it's so easy to fall into Dean, to push them through that membrane and into the other plane. He can feel Dean shift away from him, trying to draw him back to the physical, but Sam can't help it – he gravitates toward that other plane when he's working with grace, and it's so hard to see the true beauty of Dean in the physical. His celestial body is a better representation than his physical one, and Sam can't help touching it, his physical hands on Dean's neck while his grace traces Dean's facets, lingering over each as they take shape.

 _Sammy._ Dean's voice is a growl in the metaphysical, bear-like and gruff. _Come on back here._

Sam can feel their physical bodies, knows he's still kissing Dean, his hands on Dean's neck and Dean's head tilted back against the couch, but he wants more – he wants that connection from before, when their grace intertwined and he could feel Dean light up all the empty places inside him.

A sudden physical sensation cuts through his mental fog – someone's hands under the waistband of his jeans – and just like that, Sam is snapped back into his physical body. Cas is still holding him, but he's moving the other direction this time, so he's thrown back against Cas, his kiss with Dean ending abruptly. Cas is immovable, absorbing Sam's momentum and keeping them from falling over. 

Sam's physical body is breathing hard, his shoulders leaning back against Cas's chest, and his hips in front of Dean, and when he looks down, he sees Dean's hands pressing Cas's under Sam's waistband. Sam can feel his heartbeat thundering in his ears, alongside the steady but fast thump of Dean's and the lighter and erratic rhythm of Cas's. 

"Here," Dean says, pressing Cas's hands down into Sam's skin. "Give him something in the physical to keep him here."

Cas keens, a sound that Sam knows he can only hear with his celestial senses because it is certainly out of range of his human ears. He wraps his arms around Sam, his left crossing Sam's pelvis to grab Sam's right hip and his right winding across Sam's torso. Sam chokes, the feeling of being cherished, cradled in Cas's arms, so powerful he doesn't know what to do with it. He can feel Cas's desire in two arenas now; the physical sensation of Cas's body twined around his and the metaphysical sensation of Cas's grace spiraling its way around him, too.

"Finish healing your brother," Cas says again, this time softly. Tenderly, almost.

Sam can't really move with Cas draped over him, so he reaches his hand out to Dean, groping for any part of him he can reach. He's not that far away – Sam's still got his legs on either side of Dean's – but Sam's leaning back against Cas so Dean's face and shoulders are just out of reach. Sam's fingertips brush Dean's chin, but don't get close enough to grab it, or touch anything else. 

He sees Dean's wings out of the corner of his eye – wrapped around him and Cas, cocooning the three of them together. Sam stops reaching for Dean's face and flicks his wrist sideways, grabbing a fistful of Dean's smoky feathers, happy to hear Dean's gasp – partially of surprise, which he can hear, but also of pleasure, which he can feel.

With Dean's wing in his hand, he can send his senses outward to gauge the state of the rest of Dean's celestial body. He's nearly healed, just a few scraggly patches here and there, and Sam sends grace outward along the web of energy enveloping Dean, the ley lines that anchor his soul to his celestial body. 

Dean's reaction to this is immediate and primal. A bright red flare crosses his celestial body, possessiveness, a single word echoing in Dean's thoughts – _mine_ – and then sunshine yellow happiness and indigo-purple that Sam reads as something bigger than love, something more complete. It is simply them and everything they are to each other and with each other. 

When Dean is whole, Sam reels his grace back in, leaving his physical hand twisted in Dean's feathers and moving his metaphysical tentacle up Cas's arm and over his shoulder to his wings. There are some ruffled feathers, but no new damage from when Sam healed him last, so he simply spreads his grace over Cas like a blanket, interested to see the web of energy surrounding him similar to Dean's in some ways and vastly different in others. 

Dean's celestial body is organized, a pattern that Sam understands intimately, built out from Dean's soul along the pathways Sam used to construct his celestial body. Cas's is chaotic, no rhyme or reason to the places where his grace connects to his soul. 

Sam looks at Cas's soul, realizing, perhaps for the first time, that it is truly Cas's. He's not sure why Cas has a soul, or why he knows it's Cas and not Jimmy, but he does, and he knows that it's new, that Cas's celestial body is adjusting to it and doing its best to make it a part of Cas.

Sam bridges the gaps, making inroads between Cas's soul and his celestial body, intersecting lines and creating conduits that allow the power to move freely both directions. He had understood on a theoretical level that souls are little nuclear reactors, but it's not until he sees the sparks fly between Sam's grace and Cas's soul that he understands how powerful they really are. 

Every time his grace touches Cas's soul, his celestial body glows an electric blue, and Sam can feel Cas's grip on him tighten. Dean leans forward, and when Sam brings his focus back to the physical, he can see Dean's eyes roaming over Cas, tracing his arms wrapped around Sam, and then looking to Cas's wings.

He lets his eyes drift to half-shut and tries to figure out what Dean is looking for. The colors are most prominent for him here, indigo and sparks of red and acid green in Dean, and overwhelming bright blue in Cas, and some deep plum as well. The blue is about Sam, he can feel Cas's need to touch him, the way his soul is straining toward him. The purple, though, is about Dean. It's warm, too, and earthy smelling, like a freshly turned garden. 

There's a corresponding color in Dean, more of a royal purple, reminiscent of the electric blue Cas is covered in. His understanding of the colors is instinctual – he'd bet it's not colors Dean sees when he senses whatever this stuff is – but he's starting to get a picture of what's going on. Cas's grace must have touched Dean's soul at some point, and Dean would've had this same electric blue about Cas that Cas is feeling about Sam. 

Suddenly so much about Dean and Cas makes sense. 

He would have felt guilty, before. He can see the shape of it in his mind, the idea that Cas belonged to Dean first, and that Sam is somehow caught between two people who should be together. 

But Dean belonged to Sam first, so it's really just a matter of recognizing that they all fit together, each of them a necessary part of the equation that makes the other two work. He doesn't know if Dean or Cas can see that, but he's all right with letting things develop along the boundaries they've accidentally set up for themselves. He loves them both, they both love him, they love each other. All different, and yet, all perfect. It's a strange sort of geometry.

It's interesting to look at the situation and not feel conflicted about it. It must be the grace – or maybe his quick glimpse of Heaven. The knowledge that he hasn't been judged – that he won’t be judged because that's not what God's about. The angels seem to have missed that memo, but then again, most angels are dicks.

He realizes they've come to something of a standstill. He's finished with Cas's celestial body. The energy shifts across it much easier now, and he can see the sparks between Cas's grace and Cas's soul. He can feel the way it makes Cas shift and jump, just the slightest bit. 

The only thing left to do is to top Cas off with grace, so Sam turns his head, the rasp of their stubble as their cheeks rub together enough to send reverberations through his whole body, physical and metaphysical. He feels it in his wings and they twitch, slightly, where they're folded up behind him.

The kiss comes in slow motion, Cas taking time to rub his lips against Sam's cheek first. A sharp scent comes from Dean, something spicy and overwhelming – cinnamon, Sam thinks – and Dean shifts forward to put his hands on Sam's rib cage, the same place he always catches Sam when he's injured or just falling down tired. This is different, though, this is possessive, and the cinnamon smell is accompanied by a stripe of possessiveness that looks like a red ribbon in his mind, though he can't see Dean at all. Sam's staring sideways at Cas's lips, waiting for him to move forward the half-inch so they can kiss and Sam can let the grace flow between them.

When Cas doesn't move, just keeps rubbing his lips over Sam's stubble, Sam takes things into his own hands, letting his grace curl out of his mouth and seek Cas's, worming its way into his slightly parted lips. Cas reacts immediately, sucking in a breath that Sam follows right in, letting the grace flood into Cas's mouth, keeping it there for just a moment before starting to withdraw, reeling Cas in as he follows the grace.

He can hear Dean chuckle, the red in his celestial form deepening to purply-indigo, a combination of the colors that Sam knows now represent him and Cas. Cas is still bright blue, whatever that means, his need to touch Sam almost overwhelming and certainly, for Cas, all-consuming. There are no traces of any other color in him anymore.

Cas finally makes it all the way to Sam's mouth, and Sam takes the time to wind his grace around his tongue, encouraging Cas to open for him and let Sam explore. There's a slow-motion build to this thing with Cas, the kiss just the latest snail's pace exploration. Cas has been dealing with this electric blue, this need, desire, whatever – to be close to Sam. Sam's been listening to it, to Cas, turning it all over in his mind, while his frame of reference shifts from human to something distinctly more than that. And now Sam's done. This is the next natural progression of this relationship, between the two of them and between the three of them, and there's no guilt or shame in it. Sam hopes that Cas feels the same, but he can't really tell anymore, because the colors are starting to shift, the more Sam teases Cas's tongue with his own, the more acid green etchings show up in Cas's celestial body – layered through his soul and grace, too. 

Dean has been patiently watching – or maybe not patiently, maybe voyeuristically, since his color's got a bunch of acid green woven into it too. Sam keeps feeding Cas grace, sending it swirling into Cas through their kiss, and lets his grip on Dean's feathers loosen, smoothing them down and feeling Dean's wings tremble under his fingers. 

Suddenly the physical comes back to the fore in a rush, Sam's cock invested in a way it hasn't been during the grace-filled foreplay. Sam breaks the kiss with Cas to turn around and figure out what's going on, knocked entirely off his game when he sees his brother's hands pushing Cas's under Sam's waistband again, the hand Cas had on his hip now tantalizingly close to brushing his cock.

"Dean," Cas pleads, though Sam has no idea what Cas has to complain about, Sam's the one still wrapped up in Cas's arms with two sets of hands on him and no way to even hold himself up.

"It's okay, Cas," Dean says. "It's good."

Dean looks up and Sam meets his eyes. Another mistaken judgment of his brother, Sam finds. It's not that Dean's not good with words, or that he's got a limited vocabulary. It's that the things he feels are so much bigger than the words that exist, he doesn't even bother trying to define them in such limited terms. Sam has never given Dean credit for his emotional landscape – even when he knew it was deeper and broader than Dean ever let on.

"Yeah, Cas," Sam says, licking his lips in anticipation. "It's good."

"Sam," Cas says, and it's not a question. It's nothing more than the shape of Sam's name in his mouth. 

Sam nods. "Yes, Castiel," he says, careful with those extra syllables. They mean something different and Sam hopes he's hit on some of what Cas is looking for.

"I need…" Cas starts, his chest pressing into Sam's back, giving Sam something to lean against. He says nothing else for a long moment and then tries again. "I must…"

Sam wonders if Cas will be able to finish his sentence. It's funny, actually, a typical Winchester conversation, including the complete inability to put words to it. Next, Cas will probably learn how to have whole conversations around a topic without mentioning it once.

"I must touch you," Cas says finally. "I must know you, the whole of you, in every detail."

If Sam were the blushing type, he would be bright red about now. Luckily he doesn't flush unless he's drunk, so he just keeps his mouth shut and waits to see what this proclamation means. He's read the Kama Sutra, he's looked into tantric sex, all things he's done for women he's been with. The concept of knowing the whole of your lover is one he's familiar with, but it's not something that can be achieved in a single lovemaking session. 

"Better get started, then," Dean says, and Sam could kiss him for that. Dean gives up trying to get Cas's hands down Sam's pants and goes straight for Sam's shirt buttons. "And it's a lot easier to do naked."

Cas doesn't try to help, exactly. He moves around enough to get out of the way as Dean peels Sam's layers off, but he doesn't deal with shirt buttons himself, or even Sam's jeans, though his hand is still resting just under the waistband of Sam's underwear. If things keep moving this direction, Sam's going to be the only one with no clothes on.

He finally lets go of Dean's wing when Dean lifts his t-shirt over his head, taking advantage of the move to get in on the action a little. Cas had to let go of him long enough for Dean to strip his torso, and Sam shifts forward, pressing Dean back into the couch and kissing him, rolling the flannel off his shoulders and getting his hands under Dean's henley. He knows Dean's wearing a t-shirt under that, too – _why so many layers, Dean?_ – so he burrows his fingers in until he touches skin.

It's Dean's stomach, the skin soft and warm. Dean exhales into the kiss and Sam smiles. He knows all the places Dean is sensitive; it's so easy to shift that knowledge from simple brotherly affection into something much dirtier. He can feel that dark, intense shadow growing along the edge of his emotional landscape again, and he wonders who it belongs to, Cas or Dean, and whether it's his own color staining it so dark, or if that's coming from them too.

As if Dean can hear him, he answers with something in their kiss. He extends his grace, letting it move along inside Sam, changing the entire image to photo-negative, the dark stain suddenly a white etching, crystalline frost growing along the edges of a dark landscape that Sam understands is their lives so far. This is something good in a mountain of suck – and if those aren't Dean's words in his mind, well... 

_Okay._ Sam lets go of the last shred of reservation, moving in to curl himself over Dean, forcing Dean's head back so Sam can take control. He feels Cas's hands hovering, inches above his skin, so he pauses just long enough to say, "Dean is part of me, Cas, so you have to learn him, too."

"Relax," Dean says, pushing Sam back a little. "What's the problem with letting Cas explore? We've got time." 

Sam debates pushing the subject, but the hand Dean was using to keep him at bay curls around his shoulder. "Let Cas," he says. "What he needs is going to give you what you need." Sam can't help the doubtful look he's got on his face. He wouldn't have known it was there, except there's a sudden uptick of frustration and annoyance from Dean as he tries to explain. "I can just… see it. I know the two things fit together somehow."

Is it just Dean's intuition? Is that what he sees? Sam already knows it's not colors, and it doesn't seem to be anything else concrete. Makes sense, that's how Dean's always lived his life. He trusts his gut, so much so that Sam often trusts it too, against his own better judgment.

"Only if we take turns." He catches Dean's eyes, doesn't let him look away.

"Well, damn, Sammy, I knew" _I was a handsome devil, but I had no idea you were…_ Dean's words evaporate, his voice stopping first and then his thoughts trailing away into nothingness as he holds Sam's eyes. Whatever he sees there, it unnerves him.

"I know you want Cas, too," Sam says, because he can't help the small ache that makes him want to make it easier on Dean. He hates seeing Dean unbalanced. Dean looks away at this, but not at Cas, like Sam expected. Away from them both, like him wanting Cas is a weakness he hasn't been able to completely overcome. 

"It's okay," Sam says, "it's good," echoing Dean's words of a moment ago. "We'll go the other direction after. I want to figure Cas out, too."

Dean's eyes come back to Sam's, and Sam can't help his surprised inhale. Not a gasp, not noisy enough for that, but the emotion is there whether the sound is or not. Dean's curious about Sam, too. It's the curiosity that Sam knows for absolutely certain has never been there before, not before a couple of days ago when Sam turned Dean into… whatever the hell he is – _they are_ – now. 

"All righty, then," Dean says, pushing Sam away. "Let's move this somewhere more comfortable." 

Sam nods, shifting his weight backward and nearly falling when he tries to stand upright. Cas catches him, his hands winding around Sam again, along with his wings. 

Sam's knees are aching.

"C'mon, Cas, get him over here," Dean says, somehow all the way across the suite in the three seconds Sam faltered. Cas wraps his arms more tightly around Sam and flares his wings outward, flying them to the bed, setting Sam gently down on it and hovering above him. Sam can't help staring up at him. Who is this? He knows Cas. He understands Cas fundamentally in so many ways, but this being, this sure-of-purpose Castiel is someone he doesn't understand, has never really experienced the way Dean had, years ago. 

"Okay," Dean says, and the colors shot through his celestial body are so _normal_ , greys and blues and a golden yellow streak that's laughter, though Dean's not making a sound, Sam relaxes, flopping down onto his back. "Time to lose some clothes, fellas."

Sam's not quite sure what he expected, but it certainly wasn't Dean reaching for his belt buckle. He can't quite meet Cas's eyes yet, so he watches Dean's hands strip him, until he's completely exposed, lying on the bed and staring up at the ceiling because as far as he can tell, the only thing he's supposed to do is lie here and let Cas discover him.

Cas apparently made use of the time, as he is naked, too, and back to hovering over Sam, his wings spread wide and trembling as he holds himself a few feet above the bed. He reaches out a hand and Sam closes his eyes as Cas runs his fingers over Sam's face. He can feel Cas's grace spark along his skin, a fine electric current passing between them. His heart is beating ridiculously fast, and he wonders if it is possible to die from this, from being this exposed. 

Cas shifts his hand, cupping Sam's neck for a long moment. Sam opens his eyes, wondering what Cas is seeing there. "Dean," Cas says, his eyes glued to Sam's neck. "You should be bare, too."

Sam turns his head to look at his brother and Castiel gasps, his fingers tightening minutely at the back of Sam's neck, moving up to cup his skull for a moment. Dean stops pulling his shirt off to stare at Cas. "What?" Dean asks. "What is it?"

"Naked, Dean," Cas says, and Dean pulls the shirt off over his head and strips out of his jeans, boxers, socks and shoes with a remarkably smooth motion that Sam knows comes from years of practice. 

"There," Dean says, throwing his arms up in the air. "Now what is it about Sammy's neck?"

"Here," Cas says, waving Dean over. "Look at this."

When Sam tries to turn his head to follow Dean, Cas gently presses on his jaw, forcing him to keep his head turned away and exposing the side of his neck. "Here," Cas says, his hand gently sliding around Sam's throat, his thumb resting on Sam's pulse point. "Do you see it?"

A second hand joins Cas's on his neck – Dean's, obviously, as it is much colder and rougher than Cas's. "What is it?"

"Can you see Sam's grace?" Cas asks, making Sam roll his eyes. Cas never answers questions straight away. There's always a winding pathway around whatever he's trying to say.

"Yeah," Dean says. "It's blocked up in his throat and chest."

"No," Cas says, his other hand joining the party and cupping both sides of Sam's neck now. "Those are his clear gateways. The blockage is lower, in the solar plexus." Sam does a quick rundown of the chakras and can't help a humorless huff when he realizes the solar plexus is about being self-empowered and in control of your own life. "Shhh," Cas says, and Sam feels Cas's hand sweep down his chest to rest on the solar plexus. "That blockage is not your fault, Sam. We can work together to clear it, but right now, we need to clean the residue around your throat."

"Residue?" Dean asks, his thumb rubbing over Sam's neck soothingly.

"Sam's power is in his chest and throat," Cas says, his hand sliding back up to Sam's neck. "Monsters can feel that, and they try to usurp or crush it."

"That's why Sammy's always getting choked," Dean says, and Sam can feel the bright spark of amusement in it. He finds it a little less funny than Dean, but it sure explains a lot. He's not small, and even the tiniest monsters regularly go for his throat, though the rest of him is much bigger and an easier target.

"Yes," Cas answers, "and they have left stains on him. They must be erased."

Sam closes his eyes, lets the warm wash of Cas's grace over his throat calm him. He's heard it a million times before, that's he's unclean, dirty, impure, but hearing it from Cas hurts more.

 _You are not unclean,_ Castiel's voice echoes inside him, reverberating off the deep places in his soul. _You are powerful and desirable and Dean and I are simply removing every other claim to you. When we are done, we will mark you as ours._

Sam's glad his eyes are closed, because openly crying while lying naked on a bed in front of his brother and their angel is about the last thing he ever wants to do. He can feel Dean's grace, the same gentle circular motions on his neck, but somehow gruffer, more forthright. Dean is doing what needs to be done because he's taking care of Sam like he always does; Cas is taking care of Sam because… 

Cas is taking care of Sam because he loves Sam. Sam loves Cas, too, of course, and he knows what it is to feel loved – there's no way to miss the way Dean loves him, or the way he loves Dean. But this is different. Cas hasn't been stockholmed into loving Sam, it's just grown in him over the years they have known each other. Sam can trace the shape of it in his mind's eye, and he lets the grace wash away the feeling of unworthiness, of being undeserving of attention from a being like Cas.

Cas's smile has a sound like perfectly tuned wind chimes, and Sam can't help laughing, though it gurgles in the back of his throat a little. Weirdly, that alarms Dean, which is enough to set Sam off again, breathless hiccupping laughs because his head is turned so far to the side he can't catch a deep breath. He's a little dizzy with all the sensations going through him right now, the care Cas is taking with him, the fake indifference Dean's trying to project, the fizz of their grace over his skin, the growing well of peace that's settling in his guts. 

"There," Cas says finally. "That's better." Sam laughs again because he can't tell the difference, but he can feel Cas's satisfaction, the way the blue in him sparkles like a cut sapphire. There's a red streak in it, now, possessiveness, Sam thinks, like he'd felt with Dean earlier. It's humbling to be wanted like this. 

"How do I…" Cas says, and when Sam turns to look at him, he moves carefully, in case Cas decides to try and keep him from looking up again. He sucks in a breath, sudden and sharp, because he can see Cas's celestial body in miniature, written over the skin of his physical body. It's so many beautiful things packed impossibly tightly, the universe in a grain of sand. 

"How do you what?" Dean asks, and Sam can't stop staring at Cas, but he shifts focus a little and can see Dean in his peripheral vision, standing naked next to the bed, apparently perfectly comfortable with this state of affairs.

"How do _we_ make our claim on Sam known?" 

Sam can't lie, there is a deep, dark part of him that likes hearing this from Cas, and Dean's answer of tattooing it on his ass gives him the same thrill. He is theirs, though the possessiveness is mixed up with his feelings of family more than he'd like. He likes to think he has some small piece of them, too, but… 

"Here," Dean says, before Sam can really formulate his ideas about his own decayed personhood and the possessiveness of the two people he's tied to forever now, considering they need his grace not to fade back to fully human. 

Dean picks up Sam's arm, bending over just a little to bring his mouth to Sam's wrist. It shifts everything into overdrive on the physical plane. Sam feels the familiar zing as Dean sucks hard on the delicate skin, Sam's wrist tingling under the drag of the suction, and his cockhead swelling. Dean continues, his eyes on Cas, and Sam's mouth drops open as a moan escapes, the sensation bringing him forcefully back into his physical body, his arms and legs heavy and his breath shallow. 

"Fuck, Dean," Sam says, low, and that brings Dean's eyes down to meet his. He stops sucking long enough to raise an eyebrow at Sam and give him a cocky smirk. "Maybe if you're good," Dean says, and Sam exhales hard, not able to comprehend Dean's easy barb because he just doesn't have any experience with men. The promise there is both exhilarating and terrifying.

"I see," Cas says, lowering his body until he's hovering mere inches above Sam. Sam can feel his cock hardening even in anticipation of Cas touching him, but when Cas lowers his head and starts sucking on Sam's neck, he can't do anything but moan louder, feeling the colors swirl in Dean and Cas, blues and reds and deep, deep purples, all shot through with that bright acid green. He wishes again he could see his own celestial body, what colors he is showing and what that tells Cas and Dean.

As if Cas heard, a tendril of grace snakes across Sam's chest, lighting up everything in its path. _Compassion,_ Cas's voice says in his mind as the tendril wraps around the left side of his rib cage, _kindness, humility, altruism, self-sacrifice._ Sam swallows thickly and turns his head back to the side just a little so Cas can get higher on his neck.

 _Beauty._

Cas threads his fingers into Sam's hair and lifts it off his neck, sucking on the skin just behind Sam's ear, near his hairline. Sam closes his eyes and concentrates on all the extra-sensory things he can grasp with his grace, trying to ignore the way his body is heating up, the way he's already hard, and not even from the hickeys he's probably going to regret later, but from the pure devotion of his angel and his brother.

 _Courage,_ Dean's voice adds, echoing inside Sam's chest with a growl. Sam can see a shadowy outline of a bear, and when Dean adds an amused _stubbornness_ and a bull joins the picture, Sam knows these are his facets. _Faith,_ Cas adds, and a smoky butterfly appears, and finally a dog – a Saint Bernard, complete with the barrel under its chin, an addition of Dean's, he's sure – and a confusing non-word, a feeling of loyalty and desire to help and steadfastness, of iron will and resolve. 

Cas lifts his mouth off Sam's skin, the cool air raising goosepimples on the wet flesh of his neck. Cas apparently likes that, blowing on the skin and running his fingers over the gooseflesh. "And that's to say nothing of your wings," he says, letting his fingers snake down Sam's neck and under his shoulder, gripping Sam's shoulder blade with his strong fingers while his grace goes under Sam's skin to the base of the wing musculature, sending an electric shock across Sam's wings that makes them feel like they've been asleep for days, the sensation of pins and needles overwhelming everything else.

"You need to do more with your wings to get used to them," Cas says. "I'll have to teach you to fly." 

Sam cannot _wait_ to learn how to fly, but it's a fleeting thought as Cas runs his hand along the fine bones of Sam's right wing. The caress is near ticklish, it's so sensitive, but Sam is crazily turned on and it just makes him harder. 

"And that's a purely physical sensation," Cas says. _This is what it feels like to have someone's thoughts concentrated on your wings._

Sam's been pretty locked down for the last several years – not celibate, but not getting a whole lot of sex except with his own right hand – and the feeling of arousal as Cas's thoughts turn to his wings, ghostly fingers running through the feathers and over the fine bones, is strong enough to knock him backwards. He's glad he's not really expected to do anything here, because he's pretty sure physical coordination is beyond him now. He doesn't think he's been this turned on in his entire life. It gets worse a second later, his entire being – body, soul, grace – lights up like a flare. _And that's what grace can do._

Sam thinks he might go insane from this, he can't do anything but breathe, trying to stay as still as possible, because if he moves, it makes it twice as unbearable under Cas's onslaught.

He hears a yellow sound that he can just make out as Dean's laughter, and Sam realizes it reminds him of Dad – that amused fondness he had when his sons were happy but he had no idea why. "Ease up a little there, Cas," Dean says. Sam can feel him move to the end of the bed, ribbons of color like a rainbow in his wake. A moment later there's some relief as Cas's concentration is broken and Sam can breathe. He sucks in lungfuls of air like he's just run a 10k. A moment later he feels a dip in the mattress that means someone's put their weight on the bed.

He opens his eyes to see what's going on, and the picture would be hilarious if he wasn't turned on within an inch of his life. 

"Just let me –"

"Dean, what are you doing?"

"Go with me on this, Cas, just –"

"Why are you –"

"Cas, get down here!"

Sam laughs, relieved at the break in the assault on his wings. Cas and Dean are wrestling, Dean trying to pull Cas down onto the bed and Cas's wings beating furiously to avoid it. Sam watches, amused, as Dean spirals his grace around Cas, tangling up in his wings, and hauls him down until his knees are on either side of Sam's legs. 

"Just breathe a minute, okay?" Dean says, huffing and puffing with the effort. "Sam's still partially human – he can't take being in ecstasy for minutes at a time." Cas snorts out a grumpy breath, but doesn't disagree out loud, anyway. "We can try some of that later, maybe, but at some point, a human body has to climax."

Sam can see the doubt on Cas's face – not something he sees a lot. Confusion is commonplace, especially where human things are concerned, but doubt is rare, and usually has to do with second-guessing his decisions, something Sam's always felt keenly sympathetic about with Cas. "'S'okay, Cas, I'll help you out," Dean says, his arms still wrapped around Cas.

Dean leans them both forward so Sam's body is within reach. "Try this one," Dean says, untwisting his arms from Cas and gripping his rib cage lightly. There's some amusement in Dean, sunshine yellow, but a bright orange stripe of curiosity, too. It wraps around Cas until it soaks in and Cas's color shifts out of the darker palette it'd been streaked with. 

Cas leans forward a little further and sets his hands on Sam's rib cage, Dean following him easily. When Sam was a kid, Dean tickled the hell out of him like that, fingers digging into his ribs and Sam remembers laughing until he couldn't breathe, the whole time trying to call uncle and never having enough breath to manage it. 

Cas's hands are gentle and steady, and when Dean's fingers drum down Cas's ribcage, little rhythmic thumps, Cas follows suit with his thumbs. Sam holds his breath. There's still plenty of arousal leftover from his wings, and his skin is sensitive. Cas's soft touch heats things up again, his cock filling to hardness where it had flagged a little. Cas looks down at it, curious.

"We'll get there," Dean says, "just give me a minute." He slides his hands down Cas's ribcage, over his waist, and gets a firm grip on Cas's hipbones. His fingers circle the thin skin over the bone, and for the first time, Cas's cock seems interested in the proceedings. Sam hadn't been overly-concerned with that – he hadn't really been paying attention, if he's honest with himself – but it's good to know there's at least some sexual component to what's going on with Cas.

"Wh-what?" Cas asks. "Dean –" Sam can see the way Cas's body responds to Dean, his eyes falling halfway closed and his mouth dropping open. Sam's glad for the respite, to be able to lay back and appreciate Cas for a change.

"Come on," Dean says. "You've got to keep up, Cas."

Cas nods jerkily and Dean's hands still for just a moment, like he's waiting for Cas to get control of himself. Cas breathes in deeply and Sam can see the determination on his face. It makes him grin. 

"What're you smiling about?" Dean growls, and Sam is thrown back into overwhelming ecstasy as Dean's grace shifts, lightning fast, from being coiled around Cas to tracing the bones of Sam's wings. Sam would be jealous of how quickly Dean's learned to use his grace, but he can't think of anything else, especially when Cas finally gets his hand on Sam's cock and Sam has to squeeze his eyes shut or go insane from sensory overload. 

Closing his eyes doesn't help that much, honestly, because he can now feel where Dean and Cas are, Dean guiding Cas, Cas stutteringly trying to follow, the whole scene soaked in acid green like it's been whitewashed with it. 

"Sam," Dean says, and the word has a weird weight to it; it resonates in Sam's mind slowly, heavily. There's more than desire in it, there's need and something that feels like more than a request. It feels like… supplication. 

The heaviness of it adds the final ingredient to the mass of seething emotions Sam's been feeling and he comes in Cas's hand, his head falling to the side in relief. 

"Sam," Cas says, and it's weirdly weighted too, soaked in awe and appreciation, but before Sam can gather his scattered brain cells to concentrate on it, Cas is coming too, his grace expanding in waves and his come splattering hot on Sam's stomach.

They stay where they are for one long moment, enough for Sam to catch his breath, and then Dean starts lowering Cas down to the bed with a grunt of effort. Sam focuses on his limbs and gets his arms up enough to help lower Cas down, half on top of himself.

"Sam," Dean says sharply, and Sam's eyes go to him with a snap. That was their father's voice, their father's _do what I say right now_ that has been ingrained in them since before Sam can remember. 

Dean is staring at Sam's mouth. Sam waits, watching Dean's eyes because he doesn’t really know what he's doing here, but he wants it. He wants everything from these two, and he's willing to be patient to get it.

"I want…" Dean comes around the bed so he's even with Sam, reaching out to tuck Sam's hair behind his ear. He shakes his head. "Your mouth, Sammy."

Sam's confused for just a second, he doesn't know what Dean means, but an image appears in his mind, himself, obviously somewhere in the middle of Cas's explorations, with his mouth slightly open and his tongue poking out.

When Sam opens his eyes, they're level with Dean's still hard cock, and he gets it. He swallows and nods his head.

"Have you ever?" Dean asks softly, and Sam can't help a quiet huff of laughter because no he hasn't ever, and he has a feeling that if they were still human, they'd be in for a really interesting night of drinking. He shakes his head.

"Okay," Dean says. "We'll just take it slow."

Sam looks up at Dean mulishly and shifts sideways, rolling out from under Cas's dead weight to free his arm so he can grab Dean's hips. "Wait," Dean says, but Sam scoffs and takes Dean in his mouth. He's careful, only taking in the head of Dean's cock, and Dean's sucked-in breath and " _Fuuuuuck, Sammy_ ," are more than gratifying.

Sam's only ever been on the receiving end of blowjobs, but he has a fairly decent working knowledge of the basic mechanics, so he tightens up his lips and tries to get a little suction.

"Whoa," Dean says, putting a hand on Sam's shoulder, "slow down there."

Except Dean hasn't been out of control this whole time, and that's just unacceptable. Sam had no idea what this is going to look like with the three of them, but having Dean just directing the show is not part of it. He slides his mouth as far down Dean's cock as he can, careful not to hit his gag reflex, and closes his eyes, uses his grace to encircle Dean's body and listen to the way it thrums, how it's like Baby when she's tuned up and raring to go. He can hear Dean cycling through the gears into overdrive, and when he pulls off a little, using his tongue to circle the head of Dean's cock, he can feel the way everything in Dean rushes forward, the tidal wave of Dean's orgasm. 

Dean pulls out of Sam's mouth at the last second, though, coming all over Sam's face. Sam's not sure at all how he feels about that, though he can feel a cycle of emotions from Dean – surprise, apology, arousal, possessiveness – that makes him laugh. He runs a hand down his face to get most of it off. "That's some way to thank me for the blowjob."

When he glances up at Dean's face, there's pink high on his cheeks – Dean's _embarrassed_ and that is just hilarious. "Sorry," Dean says. "I didn't mean –"

Sam's not looking for an apology, though, so he grabs Dean and tumbles him onto the bed, not letting go of Dean's arm even as Dean tries to contort himself around Sam's body.

"Cas, get us a couple of damp washcloths, will ya?" Dean requests, now comfortably curled up on Sam's other side.

"Of course," Cas says, spreading his wings. Sam has a moment of mental pain as his human brain refuses to process what his grace can see – Cas flying to the bathroom and back in less than a second. It's like having slow motion and regular speed going at the same time and somehow trying to crumple the space-time continuum between them.

The feeling of wet warmth on his stomach and face as Dean and Cas attack him with the washcloths is enough to shake him out of it, and once the washcloths are wadded up in the corner of the room and Sam has Cas and Dean on either side of him, he breathes in deeply, wishing he had the urge to sleep. It would be nice to nap in this bed with them.

Dean, of course, has other ideas. "Who's up for round two?" he asks, doing something complicated with his grace. It takes Sam a minute to figure it out, because there's no obvious physical change, but after a moment, he realizes Dean is healing his physical body.

"Oh my god, Dean, did you just heal yourself so you can have more sex?"

"What?" Dean asks, smiling cockily. "It's like the first thing you do when you get grace."

Sam rolls his eyes. Of course it's the first thing Dean would do. "No Dean," he says. "It's really not."

"Where did I go wrong with you?" Dean asks, nudging Sam with his shoulder.

"How many times in a row did you heal yourself and then jack off?" Sam asks. 

Dean shrugs. "Eight. Then I got bored."

Sam laughs, elbowing Dean back, being the more mature one and stopping before it becomes a full blown wrestling match. He realizes he's been focused on Dean for a while, and Cas feels withdrawn. "Everything okay over there, Cas?"

He shifts onto his side, curling toward Cas, who is lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. "I am considering prayer," he says, and Sam would take more time to be surprised at that except he can feel Dean's scorn and he elbows his brother before he can say something stupid. 

"What about it?"

Cas turns his head to the side, searching Sam's face. "You didn't feel it? Dean's prayer? Mine?"

Sam thinks back, the weighty feeling of Dean's request, the pressure of Cas's gratitude. "Those were prayers?" He can feel Dean stiffen behind him, the gutpunch that he might have accidentally prayed making him bristle.

"Of supplication and thanksgiving," Cas says. "I had not expected I _could_ pray. For beings with grace, it is difficult to have enough emotion to achieve it."

"Wait," Dean says, getting up on one elbow and pressing in along Sam's back, "it takes emotion to pray? But we were never emotional when we prayed for you to come to us back in the day."

Cas smiles mischievously. "Annoyance is an emotion, Dean."

Sam can't help laughing – just thinking about Dean's "prayers" to Cas makes him laugh, but then having them be actual prayers, to have counted for something… it's too good.

"So… what other kinds of prayer are there?" Sam asks. He has a feeling this is something for them to explore.

"Faith, agreement, worship," Cas says, and Sam can feel Dean's keen interest in that one, "consecration, intercession, and imprecation."

"Imprecation?" Sam asks, because he has a vague sense of the rest of them, but he's never heard of that one. 

"Calling upon a divine being to smite the unrighteous."

He can feel Dean's zealous smile more than see it, and the image of Dean as an avenging angel, sword raised and wings spread is one that will likely be etched in his mind forever.

"So when Tara prayed to you for your help?" Sam asks.

"Imprecation, yes."

Dean falls back onto the bed, making them all bounce. "I miss sleep," he whines. 

"You can choose to tap into your human body," Cas says. "It's not sleep, exactly, but you can shut your human body down and let it recuperate naturally, allowing yourself rest. I've done it before while I waited for you to sleep."

"Yeah," Dean says, yawning. "I like that." He closes his eyes, and Sam can feel him shut down, easy, like everything has been for him so far. Sam'll be stuck here thinking while these two not-sleep.

"Shhh," Cas says, curling into Sam's side and resting his head on Sam's shoulder. "Let your mind settle, too. The emptiness can be almost like sleep."

Cas's wing is stroking down Sam's arm, and he lets himself fall into the sensation, letting his thoughts go as his mind empties, letting himself be nothing more than the places where his bodies are touching Dean and Cas, his wing curled around his brother and his arm curled around his angel.

~~~


	8. Chapter 8

~~~

Not-sleeping feels like drifting down a lazy river. It reminds Sam of that one really great summer when he was a kid, when dad had rented a house and they'd played stickball in the empty lot with other kids and gone to every movie that came out that summer and eaten enough ice cream that Sam actually got sick of it. They'd tubed down the river at the edge of old man McMillan's property, from the county highway where dad dropped them off to the bridge on the dirt road that led to their house, two hours of hanging out in inner tubes and laying back to watch the trees go by overhead.

He comes back to himself slowly, feeling the press of Dean's consciousness against his, like he's peeking in on Sam, and then a quiet, satisfied feeling, like Dean approves of Sam's restful state of mind. Cas feels distant, his consciousness somewhere far away yet, and Sam is curious what rest looks like to angels. 

He'll have to examine it more closely later, though, because Dean's awake, and before too long, that'll mean restlessness and movement. Dean's lousy at staying still. 

It's Cas that moves first, though, a simple strum of his fingers against Sam's ribcage, the stuttering rhythm of his fingers echoing on the inside, as if Sam was hollow. Sam opens his eyes and sees the early morning light coming in from the window, painting the wall opposite them golden. "Morning, Cas."

"Good morning," Cas says with another strum. "Did you rest well?"

Sam does a quick mental tour, something he used to do on a regular basis but fell out of the habit of when the trials made it obvious his mental and physical states were going to be _awful_ and _painful_ and there was no use measuring how bad it was. 

"I did," he says finally, recognizing the peaceful state of mind that used to be common in the morning. It's been years, since the early days on the road with Dean, even, since he felt like this. "Do angels rest, normally?"

He can feel Cas's smile against his chest. "No. Angels don't need rest, and would disdain wasting time in such a manner."

Sam hums. He can see the rich golden color of peace glowing around Cas; clearly Cas understands the value of resting. One more reason Sam prefers Cas to all the other angels put together, and God, too, mostly. If he hadn't sucked in the leviathans with all the purgatory souls, Sam often thinks Cas would've been a good replacement God.

"Don't think things like that," Dean complains. "You're harshing my buzz."

"Well, gonna do that anyway," Sam says. "We have to check in with Charlie and see if there's any new angel cases."

"She would've prayed if that was the case," Dean says, and the weirdest orangey-brown color flashes in his celestial body for just a moment, and Sam knows exactly what he was thinking. It's weird to even contemplate.

"That's an excellent idea," Cas says, "let's test it out right now." And then he's hopping out of bed and going to his trench coat to find his cell phone.

"Get dressed first," Dean whines. "Don't call people while you're naked, dude."

"Why?" Cas asks, examining his phone. "Can she see me?"

Dean huffs noisily. Clearly he wasn't expecting an argument about this. "No… Well, maybe," he amends. "But you just _shouldn't_. It's rude." Another rusty orange thought strikes Dean and Sam laughs out loud. Dean swats him and climbs out of bed. "You never called me when you were naked, did you?"

It's a dumb question, really, since they all know about that time with the bees, but apparently this is even more horrifying to Dean.

"Until the Winchesters came along, I never had occasion to be naked at all," Cas says, making Sam laugh again. Dean's still peeved but Sam can see him trying not to laugh.

"Well, get dressed," Dean says. "You too, gigantor."

Sam sighs and does what he's told, wondering how Cas does that move-at-the-speed-of-light trick. He'd really like to not have to spend time doing the really boring stuff in his life anymore. "I'll teach you," Cas says. "After I teach you to fly."

Excitement registers in Dean then, a sharp, bright yellow color. Sam's not at all surprised that Dean wants to fly. Probably not for the same reasons Sam wants to fly, though it's hard to deny Dean's reasoning ( _it's cool!_ ). 

When they're all dressed to Dean's satisfaction, they call Charlie and put her on speakerphone. 

_"What's up, bitches?"_

"Any news on the angel front?" Sam asks, to get that out of the way before the weird starts.

 _"Would've texted you if I saw anything,"_ she answers, with a definite tone of 'duh.' _"The ones that have any sense at all are blending in. Your legend is traveling fast, Sam, and I don't always think it's in a good way. Your name's all over the crazy bible thumpers' boards."_

Dean gives Sam an annoyed look, but it's not like Sam can do anything about it. "Dean, go in the other room. Tell us if you feel anything."

 _"What's he supposed to be feeling?"_ Charlie asks.

"Prayers," Cas says. "We think Sam and Dean can hear prayers."

 _"Whoa."_ Charlie pauses for just a second and comes back almost immediately with, _"You want me to pray to Dean, don't you?"_

"Yeah," Sam says. "It doesn't have to be complicated, all you need to do is think of him, and put some emotion behind it. Any emotion." 

Whatever Charlie's thinking, it must be pretty good, because Dean guffaws loudly.

"She sent me porn," he calls. 

"Really?" Sam asks. "Porn?" 

_"What?"_ she asks. _"You called at an inconvenient time."_

Sam laughs. "Fine, we'll let you go. Text us if you find anything, and pray if you need anything urgently."

 _"Like pie?"_ she asks. _"A girl's gotta have her pie."_

"Ha ha," Sam says, but after they hang up, he gets the impression of something sweet and a warm feeling in his chest that he always associates with Charlie. "That is nuts," he mutters, trying to shake the craving for food he doesn't need to eat anymore.

"It might be a life-saving necessity," Cas says. "We should probably let your other acquaintances know."

"No," Dean says shortly. "Our other acquaintances are hunters, and more'n half of them would kill us if they knew we weren't human anymore."

Cas frowns, a pinched look accompanied by a delicate, ornate pattern of dark grey the color of stormclouds. 

"Hunters are not a particularly open-minded bunch," Dean says, and leaves it at that. "But hey, Charlie said we're free and clear for a while, so it's time for you to teach us how to fly."

~~~

"Flying is mostly instinctual," Cas says, his wings flaring outward. Sam wonders if that happens a lot – there's a shift in how Cas feels that he can relate to some of his earlier encounters with the angel. "It's the navigation that's tricky."

"Yeah, of course," Sam says, "but just… what's the theory behind it? Do you have to picture where you want to go, like apparating in Harry Potter?"

Cas squints at him. "No. Of course not. This is _flying_ , not magic." 

Sam grins, and he thinks about his brief journeys with Cas in the other plane. They had taken a few moments to travel, though he hadn't been able to take that much in. Maybe if he went to the metaphysical plane and took a look around, he'd be able to figure it out.

"Not by yourself," Cas says, putting a hand on Sam's arm, like he's going to take off right here. "It is possible to get lost in Apramanabha, and the other angels would hunt you down before you could find your way out."

Sam sighs, trying and failing to wait patiently for Cas's instructions. "We'll fly in the physical plane to start," he says, looking over the acres of knee-high corn. "Start by spreading your wings."

Sam sees Cas's wings flare, and Dean's a moment later, but it takes him a minute to remember how to get his wings to spread. He shrugs his shoulders to get the celestial part of his body to do what he wants, but his wings still feel sluggish and awkward.

Cas's wings soften, and he leans into Sam just a little, cupping his hand over Sam's scapula. "Stop trying to make it physical, Sam," he whispers, sending a tendril of grace around the base of the wing musculature. 

Just like before, Sam's wings wake up with a pins-and-needles sensation, but this time, he realizes that's all in his head. He's thinking about this too hard, trying to create parallels between his physical body and his celestial one, when there aren't any parallels to be made.

He switches gears, gets into the almost meditative mindset he gets when he heals angels, and suddenly his wings are easier to control. He shifts them, tensing up like he's trying to spring. His wings respond, shivering a little; the small feathers quaking.

"Good, Sam. Let them catch the air. Feel the lift."

Sam knows the structural principles of wings and lift, and suddenly the gears start clicking away in his head, and he can feel the air molecules, use them to raise him off the ground. He hovers for a moment, and then his wings, with no conscious thought from him, beat. It's far from graceful, but it is automatic, and suddenly he has moved far enough across the field for Dean and Cas to be tiny specks on the horizon. He whoops with joy – this is _awesome_.

Dean is standing in front of him a moment later, having flown over in the blink of an eye, and overshot the landing by thirty feet or so. Cas arrives just a second after, but Sam is watching him, and he can see the entire flight. Sam can picture the feed from his human eyes. No Cas, Cas. It looks like every other time Cas has appeared out of nowhere. But the information his grace feeds him fills in the blanks – like a slow motion replay of every microsecond between Cas taking off and landing.

Dean's gone again before Cas can even ask after him, so Cas turns to Sam and asks, "How did it feel?"

Sam sticks out his wings and says, "Amazing." And then he's gone too, his flight that takes eons and no time at all, time bunched up around him like the drawstring on a pair of sweats. He goes back and forth across the field, not wanting to range too far, making sure his aim is true. He narrows it down each trip, trying to land within a few feet of the place he's imagining in his mind. He wonders about traveling further – a lot further, like to the bunker and back – but not without Cas and Dean knowing where he's going. He finds Cas, more by the way his celestial body shines than the physical body he can see with his eyes, and lands two feet away. 

"Well done, Sam," Cas says giving him a satisfied nod. "Dean," Cas says, and the sound has a weird echo to it, almost a sonic boom, and Sam recognizes the feeling – it's a prayer.

"Did you just pray to Dean?"

"Yes," Cas says. "Telepathy is too easily overheard. Prayers to a particular… entity are confidential."

Dean flies up a moment later, and Cas says, "Let's try something a little further. Somewhere familiar."

"Jody's place," Sam says. The Roadhouse and Bobby's place had both come to mind first, but they're rubble now, and Sam has enough reminders that people that support the Winchesters don't have long life expectancies. No use bringing up bad memories.

"All right," Dean agrees. "Do we just hone in on Jody? Or where her place is on a map?" 

Sam had sort of expected a bird's eye view, maybe going up into the atmosphere, and then navigating back to Earth, negotiating their trip as they flew back down.

"Both," Cas says. "Which direction is Jody's home from here?"

Sam points west-northwest, and Dean squints, like he's not sure. He's got amazing direction sense in a car, but put him out of sight of a road and he wouldn't be able to find his way out of a paper bag. 

"Good," Cas says. "Start flying in that direction, and as you get nearer, listen for her soul."

Sam nods. He hasn't thought of the sounds of divinity yet – maybe that's what Dean hears, some kind of celestial music that mirrors Sam's colors – but Sam's fairly certain he'll know what Jody's soul feels like. Or looks like. Or maybe sounds like.

Sam looks over at Dean, wondering if they should try flying in tandem, but Dean gives him a huge grin and spreads his wings, and Sam groans, because that means it's a race, and Dean plays to win. He spreads his wings and lets Dean take off first while he concentrates on Jody for a second, honing in on the warmth he can feel in his memory of her.

When he spreads his wings, he can feel a pull to the north – way further north than the direction he'd pointed originally. _Ha!_ he gloats. Dean'll be flying the long way round.

He heads toward the feeling, and within three wingbeats it changes from a gentle pull to the feeling of being reeled in, the song that's calling to him earthy brown, smelling just slightly of honeysuckle, and, sure enough, a musical background vaguely reminiscent of The Doors. 

He sees her cabin looming, seeming huge in the distance, and he backs himself off just a little so as to land outside. He doesn't want to be rude, after all.

Of course, not two seconds after he lands and climbs the porch steps, he hears a scream and a crash from inside. He throws open the door and can't help laughing at the scene. There's a bowl of something – cereal, maybe – in pieces on the floor, Dean's jeans covered in something wet, and a red mark in the shape of Jody's hand across his cheek. 

"Nice reflexes," Sam says, and Jody spares a half a second of stink-eye for him before going back to abusing Dean with the dishtowel that was over her shoulder a second ago.

"Don't you know it's rude to teleport into people's homes without knocking?" 

Dean puts his hands up, trying to get out an apology between smacks, eventually grabbing Jody's arms and pinning them to her sides in a hug out of self-defense. "Hi Jody," he says, glancing over his shoulder at Sam and mouthing, _"Beat you!"_

Sam shakes his head and Dean nods his, and Sam just _knows_ they're going to be arguing this for years to come, but he moseys over to Jody and steps in for a hug when Dean finally releases her. He grabs the dishtowel away from her for good measure and when she finally releases him from the hug, he stoops to clean up the mess. Cheerios all over the floor and milk all over Dean's jeans.

"Not that I don't want to see you," Jody says, "but the teleporting thing is new."

"Flying," Dean says, and cackles. It's an alarming sound, and Jody gives him the stink-eye again.

"Flying."

"Yeah," Dean says, flaring his wings out. They go through the walls on either side of the room. Sam can't help grinning. They've got wings. Whenever it hits him, he's like a hyper twelve-year-old again. Jody looks between their faces and holds her hands open with a little shrug. Obviously, she can't see them.

"Cas," he says fervently, and it takes less than a second for Cas to appear at his side. Sam thinks about the trip to Jody's – it'd taken him about ten seconds – and thinks that he and Dean must've flown in the physical plane, but Cas took a shortcut through celestial subspace. They're definitely going to have to try that next. 

"Whoa," Jody says, taking a step back. 

"No, Jody, it's okay. This is Castiel, angel of the lord. Cas, this is Jody."

Cas nods his head gravely, and Jody stares for just a minute before she says, "Nice to meet you, Castiel." Then she turns to Dean and grabs him by the ear. "Angels? What on Earth have you guys gotten yourselves into?"

"Hey," Dean whines, wrestling with her for a minute to get her to lay off his ear. "Cas is a friend."

"An _angel_?"

"Yeah," Sam says. "Listen, we… there's some stuff about our lives that you don't know."

"Apparently," Jody says, taking Sam's cuff and leading him over to the sink, where he dumps the collection of broken bowl, Cheerios, and the soaked dishtowel. He rinses his hands and takes the second dishtowel Jody hands him. "Do I need alcohol for this?" she asks. "It's a little early in the day."

"Never too early," Dean says, "but we should probably get comfortable. There's a lot to this story."

"Okay, but..."

Sam sees Dean's face go to high alert a millisecond before he feels it himself. The pressure of someone crossing over from the celestial plane into the human one, and close. He turns to Jody, puts his hand in the middle of her chest, and shoves her, away from him and Dean. 

She flies backward, hitting the kitchen wall with a thump and crumpling to the floor. He can feel her heartbeat so he knows she's only unconscious, but there's still enough time for guilt to ride him hard before the angels show up. Three of them, two on either side of Cas and one between him and Dean.

"Sam," Cas says, his voice the color of alarm bells, and Sam knows. He can feel it. These angels have some of his grace. 

The one between him and Dean unsheathes an angel blade, and now that Sam has the sense, he can see it's an extra-dimensional weapon. It lives in the celestial plane until the angel calls for it. The blade sings, the sweet music of Heaven he remembers from when he died. The blade is calling to him. 

Cas's distress level is off the charts, but Sam does what he always does with angels, he takes a look at their celestial bodies to see if they need healing. The one with the singing blade has burnt and scarred wings. Sam automatically puts his hand up to start healing, but the angel swipes at him with the blade. He avoids it easily, ducking under the downswing of the blade and getting his hands into the angel's feathers. 

He pushes his grace outward quickly, hoping the angel will stop fighting once it's being healed. It works – the angel's entire demeanor changes, the color scheme gone from ugly dark and sickly colors to surprise and disbelief, then hopefulness, then joy. The blade clatters to the floor.

This angel's wings are differently burnt than most he's seen; he'd almost like to find out where it was when it fell. It can't have been Heaven – those angels have nearly all their feathers burnt off. There's some noise behind him; Cas and Dean scuffling with the other angels, maybe, and just as Sam is finishing the last feathers, about to turn around and see if there are other scars he can heal when something pierces his shoulder. 

It's an exquisite pain, beyond anything he's ever experienced, it's so painful that it seems to come out the other side and is almost pleasure. He can hardly breathe. 

"Sam!" 

Dean's at his side in an instant, the angel he was fighting sporting a necklace of light as its grace spills out of the deep cut. Sam mourns the angel for just a moment until Dean grabs hold of the blade in his shoulder and there is a shockwave of pleasure, a closed circuit of his grace.

"No, Dean, don't!" Cas shouts, and Dean lets go. The pleasure abates and the pain resumes, a deep ache in his shoulder that's rippling outward from the wound.

Sam didn't see it, but the other two angels are gone. Cas stalks over to him and turns him around roughly, examining the blade in his back. "It's made from your grace."

"What?!" Dean reaches for the blade again and Cas swats his hand away. 

"If one of us takes it out, it will permanently injure Sam," Cas says. "The connection of his grace to itself could kill him."

"It's like a feedback loop," Sam offers, knowing that will make it clear to Dean in a way he can understand. "When you guys touch it, the connection intensifies." He looks over at Jody, in a heap between her stove and refrigerator. "Wake her up, she can pull it out. You might need to heal her – I pushed her pretty hard."

Cas wakes her with two fingers to her forehead and Dean offers her a hand up. "Ow," she says, rubbing the back of her head. "That hurt."

Cas tilts his head. "I healed your injury – does it still pain you?"

"The memory of it does," Jody says, making to punch Sam good-naturedly. Dean grabs her fist before it connects.

"We need your help," he says, taking Sam's shoulders and turning him around. 

She gasps. "Sam! Are you all right?"

Sam nods, but Dean ignores him and keeps talking. "We can't remove the blade. Long story." 

"Which you will be telling me over dinner," she answers, but before Dean can even explain more or tell her what to do, she takes hold of the blade and yanks it out. Sam hisses as the pleasure-pain turns into simple pain, and he can feel blood and grace oozing out of the wound.

"Holy crap," Jody says. Dean moves to take the blade from her, but as soon as he touches it, he draws his hand back.

"No, this is perfect," Cas says, pressing Jody's hand away from Dean. "Only friends of Sam Winchester should have blades made from his grace."

"Grace?!" Jody yelps, with a slight edge of hysteria. "I think I'll take that long story now, thanks."

Cas and Dean share a look of uncertainty – one that Sam would never have known about if he was human, as it's behind his back. Jody must see it too, because she says, "Don't think you're keeping anything from me. And am I going to have to stitch this boy together myself, or is the angel in the room going to take care of it?"

"Sorry Jody," Dean says, hangdog. 

Sam smirks. Jody may be the only one of their friends that likes him better than Dean. Cas puts his hand over Sam's shoulder and the bones, muscles, and skin knit together, but there's a lingering ache. "Your grace is still seeping out," Cas says. "I don't think I can heal the wound to your celestial body."

"Celestial body?!" Jody screeches. "That's it, sit your butts down in my living room until I hear this entire story."

~~~

After they tell her, Jody's whole being is sad. It was bad enough seeing her eyes get sadder and sadder, darting over to Sam with sympathy, but to watch the grey circle her soul had made him ache. He hates being pitied, and Jody has never been one to do that before.

"I'm so sorry, Sam," she says. He nods and gives her as much of a smile as he can muster. It's not like he hasn't thought of the gravity of his situation, it's just that it's secondary to him. He gets the work done, that's what he needs to do. When that's done, he'll spend time musing on how shitty his life's become and how he'll adjust. 

They skim over the only bright spot in the whole situation, that the three of them are together now, because incest is hardly a casual topic of conversation, and he doesn't want to lose any more respect in Jody's eyes.

"It's not so bad," Sam says. "I have Dean and Cas with me, we're fixing the angels up one by one. Eventually, we'll get them back to Heaven, and then we can get on with hunting like normal."

Jody gives him a grim smile. She knows he's lying, that there isn't really normal anymore, but it's okay. The pity is gone from her eyes, and there's the familiar warmth and… pride. She's proud of him. He smiles at her more genuinely then. "We're good," he tells her. "It's okay."

"Oh, I know," she says, shaking her head and grinning. She looks down at the angel blade in her hand. "And now I suppose I have a piece of you."

Sam laughs. "I suppose so." He looks at Cas. "So your angel blade – it's made of your grace? You what, make it new every time you need it?"

Cas nods. "And this is nowhere near the total amount of your grace that was left in that cabin. We will need to collect these blades – they can injure you. They are quite possibly the only weapons that can."

"Us," Sam says, sighing when Cas tilts his head in confusion. "You both have my grace, so clearly it'd damage you two as well."

Cas seems to consider this. "Possibly. Though the grace does change when it's in another being. The grace you gave me in Rufus's cabin is now more mine than yours."

"And Dean?"

Cas frowns, in that way that says Sam has probably committed an angel faux pas again. "Dean is more similar to you, to start with," Cas says. "And his transformation was from a human body; it will be decades before he can hold grace long enough for it to absorb more than the most superficial qualities."

"Wait, Dean has grace too?" Jody asks. "You didn't mention that."

Sam winces. They didn't mention it because the grace transfer is a little… intimate. As always, Cas swoops in to make it even more uncomfortable.

"Sam creates grace continuously. He must expel it or it would kill him. He shares it with Dean and myself."

Jody just looks back and forth between the three of them for a moment. "So, you _make_ grace? And you can share it?"

"Only with Dean and myself," Cas answers, and Sam waves him off at Jody's _oh really_ face.

"Cas is an angel, so he already has grace, and Dean's an archangel's vessel, so he can handle some grace." 

"Okay," Jody says. "This is all just a little overwhelming. Monsters were tough enough – this whole angel business is…" She glances at Cas, looking sheepish. "A little disturbing."

Dean's phone rings, and he takes it, getting up from the couch and walking into the kitchen. Sam nods at Cas, sending a stray thought. _Follow him._

He shifts to sit next to Jody on the couch. "Sorry about all this. It's a lot to take in, so we usually keep it pretty close to the vest."

Jody swats him upside the head. "Well, _don't_. I worry enough about you boys. Don't keep stuff like this from your friends. We can help you."

He grabs her wrist, trapping her hand between both of his. "I know," Sam says. "And we'd like you to come to the bunker sometime, which means you'll need a special sigil that lets you in."

The sound of her sucking in air as he draws the sigil on the muscle of her hand makes him smile. He can see the oxygen lighting up her psyche, washing out the concerned greens and blues that were there. "A what?"

"A sigil," Sam answers, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand. He turns it over, pulling the flesh on the meat of her thumb taut to show the sigil faintly under her skin. He says the words of the Enochian spell that will keep a possessed person from entering the bunker, and the sigil glows faintly for a second. She stares down at her hand, and after a moment, Sam releases her. As the blood flows back into her skin, the sigil disappears. Sam smiles. "It's better if people don't know about that."

Jody nods, meeting Sam's eyes and smiling sincerely. The concern has tempered into exasperated care, and when she reaches to tuck his hair behind his ear, Sam closes his eyes and revels in the tenderness. "It's my honor to know you, Sam," Jody says.

Sam smiles, shaking his head. "No." She takes his hand in hers, the reverse of just a moment ago. 

"Yes." She takes his chin and forces him to look at her. "You're a hero, Sam, the whole world owes you their lives. Let me say thank you on behalf of all of us who didn't know."

"Sam!" Dean shouts from the kitchen, urgency in his voice. Sam looks down at Jody, going in for a quick hug before jumping up and going to the kitchen.

"What's up?"

"Say it again, Kev," Dean says, holding the phone up.

 _"I've found the trials to close Heaven."_

"Holy crap," Sam says. "We can send the angels back…" He stops when he tunes in to the despair pouring off of Cas. Cas is an angel. They'd be sending him back to Heaven, away from all humankind. Away from him and Dean.

Dean's apprehensive, too, a strange neon orange color, and that's when Sam remembers the sacrifice required. It will cost his life, and Dean will be alone. Normally he would be upset about that, but Dean will have to learn to live without him sometime, and Sam's already gotten a whole lot of mileage out of a body and grace that he shouldn't have had. He'll just have to find a way for Dean to live without them. 

"Let's get back to the bunker," Sam says. "This is going to take some planning."

"I'm coming with you," Jody says, and they all turn around to stare. "We'll have to stop by school so I can let Alex know."

"Jody," Dean starts, and Jody turns to face Dean with her hands on her hips. Dean shoots a wild-eyed look at Sam, the exact opposite of his usual reaction to danger. Sam smirks.

"We'll have to stay in this plane anyway," Sam says, looking at Cas. "Right? You came through the celestial plane and those angels followed you?"

Cas nods, sheepishness a pink ribbon of color centered around the crown of his head. Sam keeps his grin in check. It's probably a bad idea to let anyone know he thinks Cas is kind of cute sometimes. Dean probably would be able to read him, but he's preoccupied with the trying to convince Jody not to come.

"Don't even bother," Sam says to Dean before turning to Jody. "You should pack a bag."

~~~

The hallways of Alex's high school are the same dull grey Sam remembers from a dozen high schools all over the States. There's something terribly dreary about them. They're waiting for Alex to be pulled out of class so Jody can talk to her about the next few days.

Sam lets his mind wander to the trials, debating what kind of trials it will take to close the gates of Heaven.

 _Don't,_ Dean says, echoing in Sam's mind. 

Sam's preoccupation meant he missed the ugly colors swirling around in Dean's celestial body. He turns to Dean, wondering what, exactly, Dean doesn't want him to do. He can't mean not to do the trials and clean up their mess once and for all.

 _Dean,_ he starts, not sure what to say. 

_I went to that church to make sure you didn't do it,_ Dean says, the words tinted in an earnest rusty orange. _I couldn't let you die, Sammy, no matter what that meant._

 _I know, Dean._ He knew Dean would talk him out of it, too, which is why he moved before Dean opened his mouth. Closing the gates had been more important. 

"Then let me do these," Dean says out loud. The secretary that's not-so-secretly keeping an eye on them raises her eyebrows at them, and Dean gives her his best shit-eating grin. _Like you should've let me do the other ones._

 _No._

The sound of Cas's voice in his mind makes Sam jump. He thought Cas had been zoning out. 

_Sam won't have to do the trials – only complete the spell._ Cas closes his eyes, for a second, dropping his head so Sam knows a "but" is coming. _And build up enough grace to make it work._

 _I can't go through that again,_ Dean pleads, the color of his desperation getting brighter, less muddy. _I can't just let Sam_ die.

 _But I'm supposed to watch_ you _suffer and die, when I'm already a… whatever I am, made by the last trials specifically so I could do this?_ Sam doesn't understand how this is even a question – he's already primed to close the gates of Heaven, it's just a little grace build-up and a few words of Enochian. Well, and the sacrifice and saying goodbye to Cas…

 _No, Sam. Just no._ Dean's staring hard at the floor, like it's personally pissed him off. _I can't do it. You were right. I'm not strong enough to live without you. But you can do it. Hell, you're probably better off without me._

 _Stop,_ Sam admonishes, because if he doesn't interrupt Dean, the self-loathing will just keep circling until Dean is in a state of despair and then things go really, _really_ badly for them. _Cas can stay. I'll stop giving him grace – it'll fade and he'll be human. You two can make it work._

 _I am still an angel,_ Cas says, _even without grace. I will be called back. And I, too, would not like to lose either of you._

"All right, let's blow this pop stand."

There's a sudden sheer yellow overlaying Dean's mood at Jody's voice, and Sam's reminded once again how complex his brother's emotional landscape is. He really has to stop underestimating Dean.

~~~


	9. Chapter 9

~~~

They land in the garage, more or less gracefully. Cas carries Jody, since neither Dean nor Sam is experienced enough with their own flying to take a passenger yet. 

There's a low whistle that makes Sam grin – he hadn't known Jody appreciated classic cars – and before he can make a comment, Dean's grinning at Jody and saying, "Let's get you set up in a room."

Cas gives Sam an indecipherable look, but Sam can see the deceit roiling around in his celestial body. It's an ugly burnt fuschia color, somehow weirdly bright and slightly dingy at the same time. Dean's either too distracted to notice or doesn’t care because there's not really that much that Cas can get up to in the bunker.

Sam and Cas head the other direction and meet up with Kevin and Crowley – obviously in a truce, considering their proximity – arguing over the interpretation of some Enochian.

"No, no, _no_ ," Crowley says, slamming down his fist. "There isn't any transformation – it's 'we do your bidding'."

"DARR is about transformation," Kevin says, his chin stuck out mulishly. "There is no other translation."

"That's obviously a typo," Crowley says, "and Metatron meant DARBS."

"He did not!" Kevin yells, and it's impressive, how much sound the kid can put out when he's really annoyed. "It's on both tablets – he wouldn't have got it wrong twice."

"Castiel," Crowley says, turning to him. "Reason with the tyke."

"What is the Enochian?" Cas asks.

"CANA –" Kevin starts, and Sam joins in, softly, "OM DARR."

"Oh," Kevin breathes after. "I'm sorry. That was really thoughtless."

"It's fine," Sam says. At least he doesn't need to learn another spell. 

"The prophet is correct," Cas says. "It's _I work to transform_."

Judging by the look on Kevin's face, the laugh Sam can't help is a little maniacal. 

"Well, that's horrifying," Dean says, coming into the room full tilt, with Jody on his heels. "Did a hyena crawl in there and die?"

Sam flips him off, but Dean keeps moving until he's standing between Sam and Kevin. Sam's not really sure what that's supposed to accomplish, but it's almost sweet, the way he still tries to protect Sam from… _every_ thing.

There's a sound a little bit like grating machinery, and it isn't until Sam spins around, looking for the source, that he sees Jody, white as a sheet, pointing at Crowley. 

"Shit," Sam says, and he and Dean rush over to her. "Hey, hey, hey," Sam says, grabbing her shoulders to steady her. "He's harmless now. I un-demonized him."

When Jody looks up at him, her eyes are huge and unbelieving. "He almost killed me."

"Join the club, sweetheart," Crowley says. "You're the only person in the room I haven't tried to kill more than once."

"Not true," Charlie says cheerfully as she comes in from the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn. "You've never tried to kill me." She walks directly over to Jody and offers her hand. "Charlie. And I just want to say that I am a _massive_ fan. Anyone that can keep their cool the way you do when the Winchesters come around is aces in my book."

Jody's got some of her color back, and she glances up at him and Dean for just a second before shaking Charlie's hand. "They told you about me?"

Before he can stop it, Charlie's off about the Supernatural books and Chuck and fanfiction and Dean has left the room, headed toward the kitchen. Sam sighs and herds them toward the table, where Jody sits as far as possible from Crowley and Charlie sits as close as possible to Jody.

At a break in Charlie's patter, Sam butts in to complete introductions. "And this is Kevin – he's a prophet, like Chuck was before him – and Crowley… was the king of Hell. But he's just a schmuck now, like the rest of us."

Jody raises an eyebrow at him. "Hate to break it to you, Sam, but you're not a schmuck anymore."

"You're not even human," Charlie agrees. 

"Who wants some grub?" Dean asks, his arms full of sandwich fixings. Cas rushes over to help, but Dean waves him off, hurrying to the table and dumping it all in a haphazard pile. "Eat up, we've got a long afternoon of planning how the hell to slam the gates of Heaven."

~~~

"So tell me about the trials," Dean says, rubbing his hands together. "What are they?"

"No," Sam says. "Do not tell him, Kevin. He is _not_ doing the trials."

"The hell I ain't," Dean growls, bristling. Kevin and Crowley back up a step, and Sam's a little surprised to read honest-to-God fear on both of them. The color's a little transparent, but it smells of orange. 

"No, Dean, there's no point. I'm already made to do this, all I have to do is recite a few words and –"

"I don't think so," Kevin says, the fear draining away into… embarrassment? Shyness? It's odd, Sam can't read Kevin's colors the same as Dean and Cas; he's not sure they mean the same thing, for one, and for another, they're all overlaid with patterns that are foreign to him. Emotional architecture of someone he hasn't spent his life with, or in Cas's case, known on a subatomic level.

Kevin waves his hands at the chairs around the war table and they all take a seat, looking up at Kevin, continuing to stand. He looks like he's about to teach a seminar, and Sam aches at the loss of potential. Kevin reminds him so much of himself when he was that age it hurts to think about it.

"Okay, first of all, there's a second line to the Enochian. COAZIOR NANAEEL." 

Cas nods. "Increase power."

"Yes," Kevin answers. "I think there's an order you're supposed to close the gates in, and Heaven is probably supposed to be the last one. The trials are _way_ harder than the Hell trials. I don't think either one of you will be able to do them."

"It only makes sense that it should be an angel," Cas says, laying his palms flat on the table. "I'll do it."

Kevin glances sideways at Cas, sheepish again. "I… don't think you could do it either."

"What's so damn tough about these trials?" Dean demands, and Sam puts a hand on his shoulder to keep him from getting up. There's no use getting worked up about this until Kevin's told them everything.

"Fine," Kevin says. "The trials are: first, bathe in ambrosia."

"Better than hellhound blood," Sam mutters.

"To align yourself to Heaven," Crowley says. "Like the hellhound blood aligned you to Hell." 

Kevin nods in agreement. "Second, drain the power from Heaven's arsenal."

Crowley smirks at Cas, and Sam shares an uncomfortable glance with Dean. That cannot be good.

"Third, you have accept grace from willing angels."

A hushed silence comes over them, and it's Jody that finally speaks up. "Is it always like this around here? Because I feel like this is way above my pay grade."

Dean laughs bitterly and puts a hand on her shoulder. "Welcome to our lives. Beat your head against a wall until it cracks."

"Your head, or the wall?"

Sam smiles. He's glad Jody's here. 

"On the upside," Crowley says, "at least we know where Heaven's arsenal is stored."

"And at least a few angels who'd be willing to share their grace," Cas says hurriedly.

"Cas," Dean growls, the threatening undertone to his voice making everyone but Cas and Sam blanch. 

"Before you go getting down on him about that whole soul-borrowing fiasco," Crowley says, "You should know he was fighting a losing battle, and without any help from you two. Believe me, if Raphael had won, things would've gone _really_ bad – especially for anyone named Winchester." Crowley strokes his chin. "And as long as I'm making a note of underappreciated people who've stuck their neck out for you, you've never really given me the credit I deserved, either."

"Crowley," Sam barks, just to stop him talking, but whatever is there in Sam's voice has shifted Charlie's fear into overdrive, and she is staring up at him with huge, frightened eyes. Kevin's wary, too, and Jody's a little apprehensive, but at least she's not afraid of him. Sam swallows against the disappointment, and says, "Just get to where the damn arsenal is."

"It's in one of Crowley's storage units," Cas says. "We thought it was the last place Raphael would look."

"It _was_ in one of my storage units," Crowley says, and Sam has to hold in a surprised laugh at the look on Cas's face when he turns to Crowley.

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Crowley said, "You have to admit you weren't exactly trustworthy back then. It was a good thing I hid it – can you imagine what a mess you'd have made with David's sling or Gabriel's horn?"

Crowley has a point, but if there's one thing they don't do, they don't dwell on past mistakes. There's plenty of current ones for them to fix. "That's all in the past," Sam says, putting his hand on Cas's shoulder, sending a tendril of grace down to spiral around his heart, just to give him a little encouragement. "Where is it now?"

"I moved it somewhere…" Crowley looks down and grins mischievously. For just a moment, he looks like his old self. "Somewhere no one would _ever_ think to look for it."

 _Oh shit_. It's in Hell. They'll never be able to get to it, because it's locked away behind the other set of doors they've closed permanently. Sam's going through all the alternative entrances to Hell he knows when Crowley speaks again. 

"It's in Bobby Singer's old storage shed in Massachusetts."

Dean and Sam exchange a look. They've found bits and pieces of Bobby's stash, lots of land all over the continental U.S., referenced on stained napkins tucked into books in his library, but they both knew there were a dozen or more stashes they missed. 

Crowley's grin turns soft. "I erased it from his memory when I gave him his soul back. He had some information I didn't want spread around."

"So no one else knew about his land in Massachusetts," Dean says. "And that's where all that power is? What if some kid stumbles over it?"

"I stop by every once in a while to check on things," Crowley says. "Don't be such a worrywart, Dean."

"Okay, fine," Dean says, and Sam takes just a second to check in on the colors he's got going on. There's just about every color of the rainbow and his mind is moving very fast – ticking through possibilities faster than Sam can pull the thoughts from his mind. "So, we get the arsenal from Massachusetts, and pray to Hannah to bring us a bunch of angels to give us grace, so what's that leave? Ambrosia?"

Kevin nods, his eyes lifting just long enough to meet Dean's before he looks back down at the tablet. 

"And that," Crowley says, "is where the real problem lies."

The entire table turns to Cas, and he looks at Sam first, then Dean. "The only place ambrosia exists is Heaven," Cas says. 

"Oh, come on," Dean says. "You're telling me no one ever brought it down to try it out on Earth? Never wanted to give a little to a human, see what might happen?"

"It can't exist outside Heaven," Cas says. "It's divine in nature. When it enters the physical realm, it dissipates."

"It exists in Greek mythology, right?" Sam asks. "Maybe we can go to Olympus and get some."

"Wouldn't that align you to the wrong heaven?" Jody asks. 

Charlie nods her agreement. "Besides, that seems like cheating."

"Locking the gates of Heaven is cheating," Dean mumbles, but there's not much heat behind it. Dean's emotions are becoming more cohesive the closer they come to having a plan. It's fascinating to watch Dean's hunting process at work, the chaotic nature of it narrowing down as they organize their thoughts and ideas. Once they've made all their decisions, Dean will work the plan with a singular concentration that Sam's always found a little bit scary.

"I've checked all the entrances I know," Cas says, "and they've all been locked down or erased altogether. I assume Metatron saw them when he had me captive, and made sure to make them inoperative."

"Well," Crowley says, waiting until he has the group's undivided attention before speaking again. "If he only shut down the doors he knew about, I bet some of my secret passages are still intact."

The entire table turns to look at Crowley, and he smiles smugly, the way he used to do all the time when he thought he had the upper hand. "So that's two big assists for me," he says. "Does that mean I'm finally officially part of the Scoobies?"

"No," Sam says at the same time Dean does. The thing is… Sam means _no_ , and Dean means _maybe_. Dean's response was more knee-jerk annoyance. It bothers Sam, how Dean sees a potential ally in Crowley. Sam pities Crowley now, and knows he's no threat to them anymore, but he still doesn't consider him one of them. It's a little strange to see the greenish tinge of trust in both Dean and Cas. 

"Care to take a scouting trip?" Crowley asks, looking directly at Cas.

Cas tilts his head in confusion, but acquiesces after a long moment, stalking across the table to put a hand on Crowley's back and push him bodily toward the garage. 

"Don't go in without us," Dean calls after them, adding, "I mean it!" after Crowley waves him off with a nonchalant wave.

~~~

The good thing about being connected to Cas by grace is that Sam knows that Cas hasn't crossed into Heaven, and that he is massively annoyed with Crowley. He keeps a metaphysical eye on them while he lets Charlie and Kevin kick his ass at video games. It's good to do something so simple in the midst of all this.

When he volunteers to make the next batch of popcorn, Jody corners him in the kitchen. "I'm not sure I'm up for another big talk," Sam says with as much humor as he can.

Jody just smiles and circles his wrist with her fingers. "You know, Sam, I may not be the hunter that's slated to shut the gates of Heaven, but I know a little something about not wanting to ask for help. It's not easy losing a husband and a son in a small town."

Sam nods. He's never pitied Jody, and with the exception of a fleeting moment while they were telling their story, she's never pitied him either. 

"I'm here," is all she says then, and Sam can feel himself crumbling, the walls crashing down all around him. He sucks in a breath and it's wet, full of unexpected tears.

"It's okay to ask 'Why me?'" She pushes her way into his arms and gives him a hug. "And it's okay to wish it was somebody else sometimes."

Sam pulls her in, rests his cheek on top of her head. He hasn't even thought of that yet; he's still just in overdrive, trying to fix their mistakes so he can finally take a breath. He can't spare himself the time to grieve his losses yet – or even really figure out what they are.

"Thanks," he says, squeezing her as tightly as he dares. "But I'm still in denial. I promise I'll come cry on your shoulder when it hits me."

"You ass," Jody says, but when she looks up at him, he sees genuine admiration there, and that bolsters him more than all the pity in the world. 

"Occupational hazard," Sam says, and Jody just rolls her eyes and steals the popcorn.

~~~

"All you need is the right lockpick," Crowley says. "It's a cheap padlock on the front gates – any ten-year-old with a little gumption could get it open."

"All right," Dean says, rubbing his hands together. "So we're going in the front door."

Crowley scoffs. "Don't be daft. Metatron has alarms all over the pearly gates. That's your _exit_. I've found you a little mouse-hole to get in through." 

Dean scowls, glancing over at Sam to see if Sam gets it. Sam shrugs. He has no idea what plan Cas and Crowley might have cooked up.

Crowley sighs. "Seriously, I really wonder about you two. The gates are closed to souls – if you morons want to get to Heaven when you've completed your task, you need to make sure they're open."

Suddenly everything explodes into color. Sam got the plan at the same time Dean did, but it's Dean's stunned reaction that hits him first, bright white hope and blooming yellow exhilaration, and deep, deep purple, a yawning ocean of everything Sam and Cas mean to Dean. 

"I don't get it," Charlie says, and Jody pats her hand in a "that’s nice, dear," sort of way.

"They're going to close the gates together," Jody says. "So neither one of them has to be left behind."

Charlie's eyes go big and round, and she looks back and forth between them. "But… you…" She blinks a couple of times, swallowing and finally nodding. "What can we do to help?"

"We'll need an extra set of hands when we pick up the Heavenly weapons," Crowley offers. 

"No," Cas says. "Angels will go with you to get those. We need to call Hannah."

"We need a place to meet that's not the bunker, then," Sam says. "And we need to decide where we're meeting after our break-in, so I can start praying to angels I've healed."

"I think Apramanabha would be wisest," Cas says. "It is much larger than Earth and will give us a little extra time before Metatron might be able to find us."

"Wait," Jody says. "Can humans go to that Apra…"

"Apramanabha," Cas says gently. "And no. I'm sorry, but you will have to leave this to the angels." 

"Not yet, I don't," Jody says. "There's still planning to be done, and you need to organize. We drove past a diner on the way in – can we make that our base of operations while we set the timetable and talk to the rest of the angels?"

"Pie," Charlie and Dean say together.

~~~

"You can open the gates on your way out," Crowley says around his cheeseburger. "You're going to have to hurry, though – once Metatron knows what you're up to, it's not going to take him long to find you."

"Right, so timing is everything," Jody says. "You get in, get the ambrosia, and open the gates… the ones we are going to immediately turn around and close?"

"No," Castiel explains. "There are several gates to Heaven, and the gates Metatron closed are more physical than spiritual. They do keep the angels out, but they keep _everyone_ out. We need those gates open. When Sam and Dean pull the great lever, it will call the host home and close the boundaries of Heaven behind them. It is metaphysical in nature. Souls will still be able to travel into Heaven, but they will not be allowed to leave again."

"Wait," Kevin says, reaching for the ketchup for the third time since they sat down in the big, circular booth, "can souls leave Heaven now?"

"Well, not _right_ now," Dean says, "but yeah. It's not a common thing, but souls can go back and forth to Heaven. Me and Sam have done it a bunch of times."

Sam grimaces at Dean's offhand tone. He can see Kevin and Jody's stunned reactions to this news. Charlie's not surprised at all – but she's read the Supernatural books. She probably knows more about them than they do.

"All right," Jody says, rallying, "so you sneak in, grab the ambrosia, pick the gates, and go to Apra-whatever to meet the rest of the angels. Then you bathe in the ambrosia, suck the grace out of the Heavenly arsenal, and have the angels feed you grace, all of which has to happen before Metatron finds you or locks the gates again. Can those things happen at the same time?"

All eyes at the table turn to Sam. He swallows and sends out a reassuring tendril of grace to Dean. He knows how much Dean hates to think about the Hell trials and all the pain Sam went through. "Not sure. The trials took a lot longer for Hell, and I was building the grace machine. I don't know how much the Enochian counts as a buffer."

"It's the build-up of grace that's the most important," Castiel says. "The angels can feed you grace slowly while you get the grace from the arsenal. As long as you complete that task before you get all the angels' grace, and can say the Enochian twice, it should work."

It's clear that Jody doesn't like the word "should" in Cas's theory, but she frowns and continues with the list she's made on a little notepad.

"So in prep work, we've got to call Hannah to recover Heaven's weapons – which she'll be doing with Dean and Crowley. Castiel's going to make a map rune in Apramanabha, so the angels know where to meet, and Sam's got to pray to those angels individually so their messages don't get intercepted. That about right?"

"Yeah," Dean says. "We need to set a time for the angels to meet us, so we don't have to give away our position in Apramanabha."

"They will know when Heaven's gates have been opened," Cas says. "We will all be able to feel that. We can use that as the signal."

"And we need to have one last movie night," Charlie says, smiling, which is an odd contrast to see considering the gunmetal grey of sadness that's wrapped tightly around her, like a blanket. "Can't go off to war without watching _Braveheart_."

"Oh, hell no," Dean says. "If it's my last night on Earth, I am watching _Star Wars_. Clearly we're the Rebel Alliance, going to blow up the Death Star."

Sam grins. He doesn't care what movie they watch, as long as he can sit around drinking beer and eating popcorn with his family once last time. "Well, seeing as we have limited seating, it'll be up to you, Kevin, and Jody to rig up some way for us all to watch."

Jody gives him a sarcastic look – she knows exactly what he's doing – but Charlie and Kevin are already chatting excitedly about the idea of a pillow fort. "Come on," Jody says, shooing them out of the booth. "We have to stop at the store for snacks before we head back to the bunker."

She hangs back as Kevin and Charlie chatter their way out the door together, leaning down to grab Sam's ear. "Don't you ditch us."

Sam tilts his head to trap her hand between his ear and his shoulder. "No, ma'am."

Jody nods, satisfied, and swats Dean on the way out for good measure.

~~~

They fly to Montana to meet up with Hannah. It's a wheat field, with the Grand Tetons in the background. Sam remembers it vaguely from their childhood; he thinks they might have stopped in a place like this for a picnic once. He remembers Dean always being amazed by mountains. He likes oceans, himself, the vast stretches of water, but for Dean it was always the land, stretching up and up and up, jagged peaks and snow.

Hannah comes immediately when Cas calls, obviously thrilled that they have found a way to bring the angels home. She agrees to assist with the retrieval of Heaven's weapons, and within moments, Sam and Cas are left alone in the golden field after Hannah and her troupe fly away with Dean and Crowley. 

"You have the rune?" Cas asks. 

Sam pulls out a napkin from the diner, unfolding it to reveal the symbol Cas drew on it. 

"Good," Cas says, pulling Sam down by his collar for a kiss. 

It's a surprise. Sam's been so focused on their work, he'd nearly forgotten about all that. Having Cas's mouth on his makes something flare deep within him, though, a gentle spark of their grace touching. Cas puts his hand on Sam's cheek and pulls away, resting their foreheads together.

"I wish we'd had more time," Cas says wistfully.

"You can come visit us in our Heaven, right?" Sam asks. "This won't be the end."

"I will be able to see you, yes," Cas says, giving him one final kiss. "But you won't have a physical body, and I have so much more to learn about it. I mourn the loss of that opportunity."

It's a sweet thought, and Sam can't help the simple, uncomplicated pleasure he feels at being wanted. "Me too, Cas. But no use cursing the way things have to be. We should just be glad we'll be able to be together."

The smile Cas gives him is sincere, but has oceans of regret buried in it. Sam's breath catches; it's so easy to forget what Cas is, how old he is, how many more experiences he has. Seeing that in his smile reminds Sam that there is much more to uncover about Cas, too, and they'll have an eternity to do it. "Go on, angel," Sam says. "Let's take care of this and get on to our well-earned retirement."

Cas's smile at that is much simpler, and he rubs his knuckles along Sam's cheekbone before finally dropping his hand. "You're okay to get back to the bunker?" 

"Yeah," Sam says. "I can fly close enough, I think."

Cas nods. "Good luck."

"You too," Sam answers, watching Cas spread his wings with the same sense of awe he'd had when he really put the situation into perspective for the first time. An angel loves him. A divine, immortal being. It's humbling.

He knows it's not necessary, but he kneels down in the wheat and folds his hands together. _Seth,_ he thinks, sure to press his fevered emotions into the thought. _I need your help._

~~~


	10. Chapter 10

~~~

It takes longer than he would've guessed to pray to the angels he's healed – he remembers every one of them, their genetic blueprints filed neatly in the back of his mind. It's just that more than one of them pray back, asking for him to heal other angels of their acquaintance (not friends – angels don’t have that concept, though they have pockets of connected angels he might consider cliques if he was still in high school). They come to him with other angels in tow and he heals those angels, too, and asks that they meet him at the appointed place when the signal happens.

He never tells them what the signal is, just that they will know it when they feel it. He hopes Cas is right about gate-opening having a ripple effect. He wonders how many angels will just rush the gates, hoping to get home before they close again. Hopefully enough to keep Metatron busy, but not so many that he and Dean don't have the grace they need.

After the additional healings, there are twenty-seven angels coming to meet them in angel subspace tomorrow, assuming they all show. He can only hope it's enough.

He spares a prayer to God, at the end. It's vague, mostly – he can't be sure it's really a direct line to God, and he doesn't want to risk Metatron overhearing – but he says thank you for the saves over the years, for taking care of him and Dean, for Cas. He's fairly certain that of all of them, Castiel somehow has God's attention. You don't get brought back from being ripped apart at a subatomic level – twice – without a little divine interference. So he says a prayer of thanksgiving for Cas, and whatever part God had to play in bringing him to them.

 _Sam!_

There's an urgency to Charlie's voice in his head, but no fear or concern. Just the warm feeling he always gets when he thinks of her. He gets off his knees, dusts himself off, and hones in on Charlie's soul, shining brightly hundreds of miles away. Flying does come remarkably naturally, and, at least on this plane, the navigation isn't too bad. Sam's a little sorry he won't be able to figure out how to use Apramanabha to fly anywhere instantaneously. 

He lands just outside the bunker, coming in the front door for a change, and grinning when he sees the huge couch and stacks of pillows Charlie and Kevin have brought out from somewhere and planted in front of the biggest TV in the bunker. There's a stack of blu-rays next to the TV and Dean and Jody are arguing about, of all things, the order they're going to watch the movies in. 

There's no way they're going to make it through more than two, though, so Sam knows which way he's going to vote based on that.

Normally this would be where Dean called on Sam for backup, but he knows Sam's feelings about the order of the movies and so he's trying to keep Sam out of the argument. "That's patently ridiculous," Jody says. "They're numbered, for crying out loud."

"Yes," Dean argues, just as fervently, "but Episode IV came out first, and that's what we should watch."

Dean obviously has not yet realized that, for the first two movies, at least, their tastes coincide. "I agree," Sam says, and Dean turns to stare at him with huge eyes. "Episode IV, and then Episode V."

Sam smiles at Dean, their little shared secret smile, and after a moment, Dean catches on. "There, that settles it. Episode IV."

Charlie and Kevin are staring like they're at a tennis match, stuffing their faces with popcorn while their eyes go back and forth between Dean and Jody. "I do like watching the old ones first," Kevin says, and Charlie smacks him. "Dude. These guys were around when they first came out. Don't call them old."

Sam chuckles. "No we weren't. How old do you think we are, anyway?" He realizes his misstep immediately and puts his hands up to avoid the answer. "Never mind, I don't want to know."

Charlie gives him a knowing smile and hands over the Nerds, shifting around him to grab Dean's wrist and pull him down onto the pile of pillows next to her. Crowley's sitting quietly on her other side, stealing popcorn. Jody takes a seat on the other side of Kevin on the couch and by virtue of being the only person left standing anywhere near the TV, Sam puts Episode IV into the player.

He surveys his family, all piled together on the couch except Cas, who is standing behind the couch, looking vaguely confused. He crooks a finger at Cas and indicates the last seat on the couch, waiting for him to sit before plopping himself on the floor at Cas's feet, resting his back on Cas's legs and tilting to the side just a little, so he can rub shoulders with Dean.

He's seen Episode IV enough that he's practically got it memorized. He hardly looks at the screen. Instead, he leans on Cas, nudges Dean with his shoulder, and watches the rest of them watch the movie. Dean is watching with rapt attention, like he does every time the movie is on, and Charlie is doing the same. Kevin is distractible, going for popcorn anytime the action lulls and pawing through it like he's digging for gold. Crowley is reading a book, looking up at the screen occasionally and eating popcorn whenever he looks up. Jody is watching with a small smile on her face, checking in them all every ten minutes or so, making sure everyone is okay. Sam can't see what Cas is doing, but Jody's eyes catch on him more than once with curiosity. When her eyes finally meet his, she smiles, warmly, and leans forward to ruffle his hair. 

He shakes it out, running his hands through it to settle it back down, and when he goes back to watching the movie, he can feel Cas's fingers in it, pulling it back from his temples, finger-combing it in the back. He leans back into it and hopes Jody is watching the movie for the next little bit. 

When Cas's hands move to his neck, caressing it gently, things get a little uncomfortable. He puts his knees up, shifting sideways to lean more against Dean. He looks over at Sam questioningly, and when his eyes catch on Cas's fingers on Sam's neck, Dean takes Sam's hand and laces their fingers together, keeping them out of sight under the shadow of Sam's legs.

Sam closes his eyes and breathes, counting and holding like he does for meditation. He could probably deal with the simple physical affection, but Cas starts sending out streams of grace to trace his wings, and it's all Sam can do to keep himself under control. Now that he's got flying under his belt, his wings are even more sensitive to touch, especially with grace.

He's never going to make it through another movie and a half like this, not without excusing himself. He hears Dean's voice, an amused, pink sound in his mind, saying, _Cas, take it easy._

Cas's grace retreats, Dean squeezes Sam's hand, and Sam takes a deep breath, relieved. Cas's fingers are still on his neck, but the physical sensation is easy to distance himself from when he needs to. He wonders if he could leave his physical body behind like a vessel. He knows what it would do without a soul, though, so he'd be sure to lock himself up in the dungeon, first.

 _Sammy_ , Dean admonishes. _Trying to watch a movie here. Stop putting all your kinky thoughts in my head._

Sam chuckles under his breath, shifting to lean back more against Cas, let him touch or play with his hair, or whatever. Dean releases his hand to go after some popcorn and Sam tries to pay attention to the movie. They rewatch them about every six months, when Dean gets in a mood, and it just happened six weeks or so ago, and Sam's apparently not in the mood to watch them again. 

He pulls a shroud over his thoughts, a bubble of silence so he doesn't bother Dean, and lets his mind wander. He goes over their plan, particularly the parts that could fail, and thinks about all the possible outcomes. Even in the best outcome, they won't have physical bodies anymore, He has no idea how to even imagine that. And he wonders if it will matter – the last time he was in Heaven, he had an image of himself that felt like a physical body. He'd sweated and breathed hard and touched things. Maybe a fake physical body will be good enough. He's sure there's more than one person whose Heaven is all about sex.

He's sure his own will have plenty of sex in it, if Dean has anything to say about it, and the idea makes him grin. He wonders if angels can take their vessels to Heaven, or if when they're recalled, their vessels are automatically released. He likes to think so, though a soulless Cas running around is a disturbing thought. 

Then, even more disturbingly, he thinks, what if Castiel's soul doesn't come to Heaven? Will Cas be split in two, his body and soul remaining on Earth as human, without them, without anyone? And what about the Cas that's with them in Heaven? Will angelic Cas, separated from Cas's soul, still have any interest in being with them? He and Dean are mostly the same as they were before the grace; though, now that he thinks about it, _what if they aren't?_ What if this relationship is only possible because of the intersection of grace and soul and body, and without pieces of that, not only will they not work, they will feel guilt and shame?

Sam holds his breath and tries to settle the negative thoughts. Closing the gates of Heaven comes first. Whatever happens after, whatever that means for them, they will deal with it. Ending up in Heaven together, in any way, is probably more than they deserve.

Sam's chest expands, a deep breath, feeling more settled now that he's finally gone over everything in his mind as much as he can. He glances up at the TV, not at all surprised to find they're midway through _The Empire Strikes Back_. Cas's hands are still on him, now both of them massaging his shoulders. He hums his appreciation to Cas. Dean's turned away from him, halfway twisted around because Charlie decided to make Dean a pillow. She's still watching the movie, but her eyes are glazed over and she looks about ten minutes away from sleep. Crowley's still reading, Kevin is asleep with his legs curled under him and his head resting on the arm of the couch, and Jody… Jody is staring at him. Or more accurately, at Cas's hands on him. Her eyes are wide, and she slides them over to Cas and back, silently asking the question. 

Sam debates trying to shrug it off, but what the hell? They're dying tomorrow. Doesn't hurt to give her some small piece of the puzzle. He gives her a short nod, and smiles questioningly. Her eyes stay wide, but she breaks into a smile, and punches him on the shoulder. 

By the end of _Empire_ , Charlie's fallen asleep, and Crowley's head is dropping to his chest as he reads. Jody stretches as the credits roll, yawning ostentatiously. "Time for bed," she says, pulling her legs up and going over the back of the couch. She leans over Kevin, but Sam catches her attention and shakes his head urgently. They can carry Kevin and Charlie to their rooms, there's no need to wake them up.

Dean scoops Charlie up from the floor, getting up easily. Sam scrambles to his feet, patting Cas's calf once, reassuringly, and wrangles Kevin into his arms. He's not as easy as Charlie; it's more like carrying an overgrown toddler. Luckily Kevin is clingy when he's sleepy. 

Crowley and Jody lead them down the hallway, Crowley splitting off into his room and going in with a tired wave. Dean takes Charlie into her room, tucking her in and kissing her forehead. Jody, Cas, and Dean follow him to Kevin's room, where Sam does the same thing with him. 

"We've got a big breakfast planned for you guys," Jody says as they reach her room. "Most important meal of the day."

Sam knows they aren't planning to stay until breakfast – they're terrible at goodbyes, and it would only make it harder, seeing the family they're leaving behind. "We'll be there," Dean lies easily, and just as easily, Jody sees through him. She swats him upside the head and then pulls him into a rough hug. She turns to Cas next, and Cas looks nervous, glancing over at them for guidance. Sam can't help a smile.

"It's okay, Cas, she doesn't bite."

Jody gives him a look over her shoulder that says he'll get his. She steps up to Cas and gives him a big hug, whispering something in his ear. "Of course," he says. Apparently he's finally learned that lesson. When facing death, lie to the loved ones.

After she releases Cas, Jody comes over to him and wraps herself around him in a hug. He puts his arms around her, holding her as tightly as he dares. When she pulls away from him, she has wet eyes, but she's not crying, something he is immensely grateful for. There's too much to do, he can't be distracted now. "C'mon," she says, pulling Dean by his sleeve, "let's give the lovebirds a little privacy." 

The look of shock on Dean's face is priceless, and when Sam can feel Cas's unquenchable desire to tell the truth bubbling to the surface, he kisses the angel just to keep him quiet. He can hear Dean's squeak of outrage and Jody's delighted laugh as she drags him away.

Sam turns his attention to Cas, focusing on their kiss instead of using it as a distraction, spinning grace through it to trace along the ley lines of Cas's soul. Cas pulls away after just a moment. 

"No, Sam, not now. You can't spare the grace."

Who knows if that's true. Sam hopes that there will be more than enough grace in the artifacts and from the angels, but really, who knows? He can't even imagine it taking this much grace – the other trials took only a fraction as much, and he felt like he was being burned from the inside out. He pulls back the grace reluctantly, but replaces it with his hands on Cas's face, pulling him back in before he can make any further protests.

Cas reciprocates easily. He enjoys kissing with tongue, and Sam's almost positive now that taste is Cas's favorite sense. His own is smell – it triggers memories for him, which is a real double-edged sword. He thinks Dean's is hearing (he's got a remarkable ear for the rhythms of everyday life) but Dean is extremely visual, too. 

Not that Sam isn't – when he pulls away from Cas, the way he keeps his eyes closed and the expectant look on his face is one of Sam's very favorite things. "C'mon," Sam says, pulling Cas by his sleeve toward his room. "Don't want to scar any of the kids for life if they walk in on us."

A muffled _too late_ comes from a door up the hallway a few yards. Crowley's quarters. Well. If there's one person with no room to throw stones, it's Crowley, so Sam's not sweating that one. Cas is reluctant to move, though, and Sam has a feeling it's because Dean's been dragged off by Jody to God-knows-where. 

_He'll find us, Cas._

Cas turns to smile at him and nods, letting Sam lead him through the labyrinthine hallways. When they get to his room, Sam's less interested in sex than in simply touching Cas's skin. He wants to be close, to rest his head on Cas's chest and have Cas's arms around him. There are so many things he misses from his attempts at an ordinary life, but having someone warm in his bed to cozy up to is probably the biggest. He strips his clothes off quickly, pulling at Cas's shirt when Cas stands around watching Sam instead of doing the same.

Cas pushes him down on the bed, lying on his back, which is Cas's favorite position for him. Easiest to stare, which Cas does a lot. Cas is cataloguing Sam's physical body now; he can feel the flow of information in Cas's consciousness. 

"You know this isn't _me_ , right?" Sam says, because he's distrustful of his body, and it's had so many people in it he feels like it's something he's renting. "Not my body, not even my grace or my soul."

Cas continues cataloging, but answers, "What is it that makes up Sam Winchester, if not his body, grace, and soul, then?"

"My experiences," Sam says. "My memories and choices, what I've done or chosen not to do."

Cas nods, moving close to touch Sam's leg, one hand braceleting his ankle. "I see." He skims his hand up the back of Sam's leg, cupping his calf. "But your experiences are, to some degree, shaped by the physical body you are in. And I wish to know what I can of it before it is no longer available to me."

Cas bends over and places a kiss to the side of Sam's knee, opening his mouth and tasting the skin there. His grace is still moving restlessly over Sam's body, but his concentration is clearly on the physical as he crowds in between Sam's legs, letting his hands and mouth explore whatever they can reach. 

It might not be intentional, but Cas's grace pulls back as Cas lets his hands roam over Sam's skin. It's been awhile since Sam's paid any attention to his physical body. He hasn't run in weeks; he doesn't eat anymore; he doesn't shower or brush his hair or use deodorant. 

He mirrors Cas and pulls back his own grace, tucking it inside, burying it under physical sensations he hasn't thought about for a long time. He's never had a libido like his brother, and he's always been more attuned to the idea of connections and relationships. 

He lets himself do nothing but watch Cas; lets Cas move him as he pleases, giving in to whatever it is that Cas wants from him. It's hard not to see the whole of Cas anymore, the way his celestial body bends space to fit around Cas's physical one, the way his soul radiates from within, sparking where it connects to the grace flowing around Cas's entire being. Still he concentrates on Cas's physical form, the body rebuilt to resemble Jimmy Novak – for no other reason, Sam's sure now, than because the Winchesters were familiar with it – and realizes he loves that too. 

Cas's body, his relatively frail human body, made for a simple life, one of children and nine-to-five jobs and taxes, it is beautiful to Sam. 

Maybe it's because he's pulled back his grace, but Sam can feel tears welling up. It's overwhelming, the idea that Jimmy Novak died in service of Castiel, his family left alone. This leads to a long trail of unwelcome thoughts, reminders of all the difficult things they've done in their lives, the responsibilities they've take on because there was no one else to do it, the price their family and friends have paid. _Why is it always us?_ Sam wonders, Jody's words from earlier echoing in his mind. 

_Sam._

Cas has not stopped exploring Sam's body. He's still touching and tasting every part of Sam, methodically. Creating a cross-referenced index, probably. Sam smiles at the thought. But there's more, Cas's own physical body reacting to Sam, his skin flush and warm, his cock hardening. Sam's hard too, but it's so far away from where his mind is right now, it hadn't registered until he directly thought about it. 

_Do you wish me to stop?_

Sam thinks about it briefly, debates suggesting they should just go now. He thinks this is going to make it harder. 

_No._

The sound of Cas's hum of pleasure reverberates in Sam's chest; Cas is currently tracing the lines of Sam's ribs with his tongue. _Your physical form is beautiful, Sam._

Sam can't help the sarcastic twitch of his mouth. He's not insecure about his looks, not anymore. His time at Stanford – out of the shadow of his brother – taught him a lot about who he was in the world without Dean. He understands what people see when they see him by himself. It's an incomplete picture, always will be, but he knows how people take him on his own. It's different than the way people size him up when he's with Dean. 

Dean is beautiful. Dean has always turned heads. He used it to great effect when they were younger. These days he uses it less and is annoyed by it more; Sam's never thought about it, but things started changing on that front after Dean's stint in hell. 

Still, he knows he's appealing to a certain type of woman, usually the ones least likely to be interested in Dean. And Cas, apparently, who is interested in Dean. But he doesn't react to Dean's body this way. It must be something to do with Sam's grace that first day. The color has been constant since then, a bright, electric blue. Sam mourns the loss of time that means he won't be able to figure out exactly what that color means, and how it ties to the bright purple color in Dean.

Sam starts paying closer attention to what Cas is doing, letting his body do what it does best. He lives in his mind so much that he can forget about his body sometimes. A lot of times. But Cas is insistent and despite his wandering mind, Sam's body is responding to Cas in the way only a physical form can. His skin is hot, his cock is hard, his mouth is dry. He's gotten better at taking a back seat since this all started; he's always been in the driver's seat during sex before, but there's something about being appreciated so intensely, the way Cas studies every small detail, like the fine hairs on his thighs might hide a secret of the universe. It brings out the cat in him, the one that wants to lie around, luxuriating in a sunbeam.

Still, for all that things are heating up, there's a growing sadness underneath, an understanding that this is the last time they will be able to connect like this, let their skin get hot with friction and their nerve endings sing with the light touch of fingertips. Suddenly Dean's absence is unbearable, and some unknown part of him calls out to his brother. _Dean!_

Dean's response is immediate, a desperate non-word that might actually be "Sammy" in the five or six dimensions they exist in now. It's a howl, almost, Dean's instinct to protect shining like a spotlight from somewhere deep in the bunker.

 _Where are you guys?_ Dean asks. Sam can feel him sending out a few tendrils of grace around the bunker, looking for them. Sam had never thought of that; he wonders if he'd tried to collect his grace from the floor of Rufus's cabin, if it would've come back to him.

 _My room,_ Sam answers. _Hurry._

His orgasm is building, a thunderous feeling sitting in his pelvis, every one of Cas's ostentatiously spontaneous touches creating more weight, pinning him to the bed and lifting him off it at the same time, his body a confused mess.

Dean's half naked when he barges in, his flannel and henley lost somewhere in the determined jog to Sam's room, and Dean doesn't bother with his jeans, just crosses to the bed, making a beeline straight for Sam, his hands on whatever parts of Sam he can get to, the cap of his shoulder and two fingers on his waist. As Cas shifts to the other side of Sam's body, Dean crowds in, his touch grounding, firm and weighted and pressing Sam down into the bed, giving him something to push against.

Sam closes his eyes, his mind finally, finally giving way to his physical body, the electrical impulses that so resemble the way grace tears through his metaphysical body. It gives him ideas, makes him think about metaphysical sex, but then he's back to the growing melancholy, the loss of some part of themselves – small, maybe, but part of what makes them who they are. He can't imagine Dean without his freckles after a day in the sunshine, or Cas's piercing blue eyes and scowling lips. 

Will all the parts of them be stripped away, one by one? Will they eventually be nothing but their memories, a wisp of smoke in Heaven's ether?

"Sammy," Dean murmurs, bring himself closer and pressing his body into Sam's side. "Get out of that big brain of yours."

Sam tries to pull out of it, but the more his body hurtles toward orgasm, the stronger the pull of sorrow, of how he will miss this, miss them, the physical he's already started to slough off like so much dead skin. His breath gets erratic and he lets his mind reach for release, concentrates on the orgasm he's been trying to stave off, to give them just a few more minutes together in this realm. 

"That's it," Dean says softly, the words pressed into the curl of Sam's ear, the breath that carried them hot on the side of his face. "Let go. Give it to us."

Sam comes with his eyes closed, one hand convulsively scrabbling at Cas's shoulder and the other locked tight in Dean's, the muscles of their forearms straining. He breathes through it, seconds that last for hours, held tight by the two people he loves most in the world, the three of them standing fast against the coming tide, just for a moment.

~~~


	11. Chapter 11

~~~

They leave in the dead of night, after they are sure everyone is asleep. The soft sounds of their dreams are the last thing Sam hears for a long time.

The flight to Heaven is cold. It's different than traveling on Earth or in Apramanabha; there's something intimidating about it. Unwelcoming. Sam wonders if it's just Metatron or if Heaven has always been this way.

He can feel Cas draw an umbrella over their thoughts. _They travel farther here,_ Cas tells him. Sam wonders if it's physics. Lack of friction, or –

_Sam._

He can feel Dean's amused smile to his left, the studied calm of Dean prepared for a fight, the zen of pre-battle. Sam has always been nervy, channeling his adrenaline into the fight. Dean's never had nerves, just calm expectancy, easy confidence that he is ready for anything. 

_This isn't a battle, Sam. It's a theft._

That changes everything. For some reason, that part of the job has always been easier for Sam. One of the only things he doesn't like about being so tall is the loss of inconspicuousness. He doesn't blend in like he used to; no matter how much he hunches, he's still usually the tallest person in the room, and he's pretty hard to miss when he's standing at a door for too long, picking a lock.

At any rate, it calms him, and he feels better about where they're going, the seemingly endless amount of time it's taking, even though he knows it's the strange sort of time, the one that doesn't take any at all on Earth. It's eternity, the moebius strip between one moment and the next. 

They finally arrive, in a place with no light, not just dark but a place where light is truly non-existent. _Where are we?_

 _Heaven adjacent._ Cas is amused, Sam can tell by the feel of the words. His other senses are muted here too – he can't feel the swirl of Cas's grace or the color of Dean's mood. He wonders if that’s this place or Cas's stealth precautions.

It takes another eternal moment before they're stumbling into Heaven; a small press sideways through a stretchy membrane and then they're in the suburbs – a sea of well-manicured lawns and huge, boxy houses. There's a man picking up a newspaper from his front stoop. He stops to look at them, tilting his head like he's curious, and Cas raises his hand, doing something complex with his fingers. 

The man slumps, falling face first onto his lawn. He can feel a brief twist of Dean's delight, laughter kept in check. _Hurry,_ Cas says, and they fly across the suburb in the blink of an eye, and then through a big city – London, Sam thinks, though he doesn't see any of the classic landmarks, so maybe someone's imagined version of it – and then a golden field of wheat, a base camp in the mountains somewhere, a cabin in a snowy wood, a swamp. They come too fast for him to catalog them all, only catching on his consciousness for the briefest of moments, even the ones that feel strange to him or pique his interest. 

_Here,_ Cas says finally, and they're standing in an alleyway, at the back door to a decrepit brick building. There's music blaring from inside, thumping bass that Sam can't make out as any song he recognizes, but familiar all the same.

When they enter, the place is deserted. There's one woman in the middle of the dance floor, admittedly having a good time, dancing up a storm with herself, and not a single other person in the house. Dean nudges him and Sam can feel him press an image at him, forcing it into his consciousness with a stubborn determination. 

That's when he sees the rest of them. They're pale apparitions, dancing and drinking and in some of the dark corners, fucking. But she is the only real person here. She's dancing with three ghosts, all attentive and fawning, and something about the scene makes Sam sad. 

_It feels real to her_ , Cas says, but that only makes it worse, so he shakes his head, to cut Cas off as much as to clear the image. He doesn't want to think about being stuck in his own imagination for eternity. 

Her eyes eventually light on them, and Dean moves forward instinctively. _I've got this_ , he says, _go find the stuff._

Once Dean starts moving toward her, the suspicious look on her face drops off immediately, and Cas hauls Sam sideways by his elbow, making a show of jostling him through the translucent crowd of people. _We can't let her be interested in what's going on,_ Cas says. _It will send up a red flag._

Sam looks over his shoulder at Dean, who's stopped the bump and grind to kiss the woman, holding her in his arms in the middle of a hundred semi-transparent gyrating bodies. There's the briefest pang of jealousy, of someone who isn't him or Cas being the focus of Dean's attention like that. He can feel Cas's smile and his hand on Sam's arm as they make their way behind the bar and into the storeroom.

It's thankfully empty – of course it is, nothing here is _real_ , the bar never needs to be stocked – but there is a glowing sigil marked into the back wall. Or on top of it. Or maybe in the space in front of it. It doesn't fit in with the rest of the place, like it's in another dimension, which, Sam supposes, it might be.

Cas mumbles some Enochian at it, yanking Sam through after he's finished, and they're back into the inky nothingness from before. Sam tethers his consciousness to Cas's, the only thing he can sense in this place, and follows him through the dense emptiness until he stops. _What?_ Sam asks.

_It's locked._

Sam still can't sense anything, like he's in a metaphysical dead spot, so he pushes himself at Cas's consciousness, trying to feel or see or hear whatever Cas is experiencing. Cas grabs onto him – a phantom feeling of Cas's hands on his arms, and the place is infused with a blueish glow, strobing pulses of divine power outlining something like a door. Sam understands it to be a door, anyway, even though the shape is inside out and vaguely Picasso-esque. 

It has a lock, too, something Sam has always understood, and he grins as he moves forward, molding his grace into picks, swirly, oddly shaped things that will fit into the puzzle of the metaphysical lock. It only takes a moment to pick it and then they're in a root cellar. It doesn't look like one – it isn't one, obviously, but it has the earthy smell of one, and a potent, heady taste in the back of his mouth. 

That's all Sam has time to register as they're only in the cellar for a moment. Cas grabs something lightning quick and flies them out, reaching out and snagging Dean as they fly by. Sam can feel they've caught Metatron's interest; he's twigged to where they are, and he's following Cas with a single-minded determination.

There's another parade of private heavens, every imaginable place on earth and some he thinks he recognizes from books he's read – there's at least two Middle Earths and three Hogwarts in there, not to mention several dragon-filled heavens – and a short eternity later, Cas drops them unceremoniously. 

Sam's mental image is of a zoo; he can feel the press of caged animals in front of him, sad and frustrated. In front of him is a gate, and that's absolutely literal. It's wrought iron and ominous looking, which is not exactly what he expected out of the pearly gates.

 _Sam!_ Cas's voice is urgent in his mind, and Sam turns to the gate and the simple padlock represented there, not really a padlock but a simple sort of puzzle, so straightforward as to be insulting. He picks it with half a thought and one of his grace-made lockpicks.

If Cas hadn't been at his back, he probably would've been blown halfway across Heaven. There's a huge influx of something – souls, he thinks, though he can't seem to catch a real glimpse of any of them. _Come on,_ Cas says, tugging at him like he's the one keeping them there, and he's _not_ – he can feel Metatron bearing down on them, enraged and insane. 

Dean is the one that actually pushes them through the incoming stream of souls, putting his head down and making a path through them. They only need to get outside the gates, Sam knows, though he doesn't know how, and they can shift through the membrane to angelic subspace. Sam is caught between his brother, making headway by inches, and his angel, wings curled around them both in what Sam understands to be a shield. 

And then the angels start showing up. They blast a hole through the souls filing in, sending some flying out along the fence, and if he thought Metatron was pissed, that is nothing compared to the wrathful vengeance of the angels. They are coming in droves – ones with functioning wings carrying others whose wings are still messed up – and head straight toward the menacing presence Sam knows is Metatron trying to get to them before they leave Heaven. He's never been more relieved than when Metatron's attention is ripped away from them, and the focused hatred he'd felt as a target on his back is replaced with fear.

A few more moments and they've pushed their way out of the gates. Cas grabs them both and starts flying, folding space beneath them as he travels across Apramanabha toward the sigil Sam can see lighting up the sky like a bat-signal.

Sam can only pray that Hannah keeps her word and at least a few of the angels he healed will show. He knows the pull of Heaven is strong – he can feel it himself, though dully, like it's coming through water. 

They land uneventfully at the sigil and Hannah is there, as well as several dozen angels. Sam breathes a sigh of relief – for all of two seconds before they get ambushed. Sam feels Dean notice it before he sees anything himself; Dean's weird instinct for danger lights up neon bright in Sam's mind, and then a second group of angels shows up, angry and carrying blades made with Sam's grace. 

He can feel the angels he's healed whispering over angel radio; it's louder than the ever-present hum, and unison. _Protect Sam Winchester._ It's humbling.

Cas, Dean, and Hannah surround him, fighting off any angel that gets close, but Sam's heart goes out to these angels – they're still hurting, he can feel that, they've lost their wings and they are grieving – and he doesn't want any more angels to die, certainly not because of him. 

"No, Sam," Cas says desperately, fighting both to keep the angel in front of him away from Sam and to keep Sam locked into the space between them. _It's too dangerous. They could kill you._

Sam knows. He can feel the blades – there are at least a dozen of them around – calling to him. He can also feel the anguish of the angels, most of whom are still injured from the fall. 

With the next attack on Cas, Sam reaches over him and parries. He grabs hold of the only piece of the angel he can reach – its outstretched hand – and sends grace out as fast as he dares, guiding it to heal faster than he's ever done before. The angel drops the blade, its mouth open in utter surprise. It backs away from Sam, bringing its wings in front of itself and staring. 

Cas turns to address an angel that's threatening Sam on his right, and Sam shifts half a step sideways to slip out of the protective circle. He speed heals two more angels fighting Hannah, and moves forward to heal the two angels behind them. As he shifts out one more concentric circle, he can see the other angels fighting their brethren and his heart falls. There are at least half a dozen dead angels on the ground. 

_Tell them to stop fighting,_ Sam begs with the next angel he heals, and the one after that. _I will heal you all, please, stop hurting each other._ They don't listen. The angels he heals are too stunned to communicate to the rest of the host, and the ones he hasn't healed are too stubborn and sure of purpose to hear him.

He circles Cas, Dean and Hannah, healing any angel he comes across that is still injured. There are a few non-injured angels that try to kill him, but they are quickly dispatched by his personal retinue of angel bodyguards. Sam mourns them, and heals them, if they haven't expired. He would like to try bringing angels back, but he doesn't have time to figure it out while there are still angels threatening his brother with blades made of his grace. 

Soon the only angel left with ill will toward him is the one Dean is fighting. Sam steps in front of his brother, catching the angel's blade before it can connect, and pushes his grace forward into the angel. Once the angel has been healed, the last blade made from Sam's grace clatters to the ground. 

Sam looks up at the sea of angels. They're all looking back at him with a singular expression – one he can hear on angel radio as a deep, radiating hum. He tunes angel radio out most of the time – it's like being connected to Twitter in his brain – but this is huge, a solidarity that is exceptionally powerful. 

There's a niggling feeling in the midst of it, though, something closer and more personal than the deep gratitude of the host. It's coming from Cas, and when Sam scans the crowd to see Cas, there's a breathlessness to him that Sam doesn't like, especially coupled with the sudden searing pain in his back. Dean is already at his side, pulling at his clothes as Cas ineffectually bats at him.

Sam hurries over and lays his hands on Cas's wings, firmly, brooking no excuses. It doesn't take much to heal him, but two of the many small wounds won't heal up fully and leak grace in thin rivulets. Sam examines them closely, finding the edges of the wounds and trying to force them to knit. They stubbornly refuse. Clearly, they are wounds from the blades made by Sam's grace. 

"I don't like that," Sam says, and Cas chuckles. 

"It's fine," Cas says, mending his shirt so Sam can't see the grace leaking out, at least with his physical eyes. He can still feel it, a soft, unpleasant hiss that tugs at his heart. "I will have millennia in Heaven for it to heal."

Sam nods. Hopefully Sam and Dean still have their invites to Heaven, and they'll be there with Cas. Man, that'd be just perfect, if their permissions got revoked and they ended up in Hell instead. Then again, without Crowley, maybe they'd just take over the place. Couldn't be any worse than present management.

"That is a depressing thought, Sam," Cas comments. "Please think positively about your post-mortem adventures."

Sam smiles, turning to Dean to bring him in on the joke – it's exactly the sort of gallows humor Dean appreciates – but Dean is gone. Sam looks around, trying to figure out where he went, and catches him just as he picks up the jug of ambrosia. 

_That fucker!_ He's too far away for Sam to get to him in time, unless he can manage to use shortcuts the way Cas does.

Stress brings out the weirdest things in Sam. With Dean, it's always the growling monster, the mama bear standing in front of her cubs. Sam, though… Sam remembers things. Things that are tucked away into weird corners of his brain, things he reads or picks up for no real reason at the time, but that save his ass later. This time it's the concept of folding space. He's only just started to synthesize the difference between his physical senses and his grace-built ones, but it involves reading two very different concepts of time and space together. Sam's mind trips over the answer, diving _into_ the space between them instead of through it, and he comes out of it just in time to tackle Dean as he's dumping the ambrosia on himself. 

It couldn't be more perfect – the jug gets jostled and there's ambrosia everywhere, stickiness that dribbles down his face and coats him and Dean, their clothes, the ground, and the pile of weapons stacked neatly next to them.

Sam wipes a hand down his face, trying to gets some of the sticky stuff off, but it just spreads it around further, so he gives up, sticking his tongue out to taste it. What're the chances he gets another opportunity to taste ambrosia, anyway?

Dean grins and does the same, giving Sam his, "eh, not bad" face. Sam pushes the Enochian at Dean – he doesn't know if Dean remembers it, and it's best to be brusque about it if he doesn't want to insult Dean's intelligence. Dean nods, and when he takes a breath to speak, Sam matches him.

"CANA OM DARR, COAZIOR NANAEEL," they intone together. 

Sam can feel the electricity of the grace running through him. He can tell he's stronger than when he did the Hell trials, because it doesn't hurt or burn – it just makes him feel full. Dean cries out, though, spasming on the ground. Sam can feel the pain pulsing along Dean's nerve endings, the same way it did when he completed the Hell trials. He keeps his hands on Dean until the grace settles down and Dean's breathing normally again. "Okay?" 

"Yeah," Dean croaks. "Let's keep going."

Sam shakes his head, putting a hand on Dean's shoulder to keep him from moving. He looks over Dean's forms, both human and celestial. Dean's human form is in pain, which Sam knows is only going to get worse, but the ghostly celestial form that Sam created from his own grace has changed, become more solid. The smoky outline of his wings are filling in with solid shapes, the bones and webbing, some of the follicles growing actual feathers. It's pretty ugly right now, but Sam has a feeling when they finish the trials, Dean's wings are going to be beautiful. He hopes he gets to see them. 

He takes a moment to pour a little extra grace into Dean's human body, healing it as much as he can and alleviating at least a little bit of pain. Dean shoves him off. "Let's just finish it," Dean barks, irritable. "It's gonna suck, I know, but better to do it quick and get it over with."

"All right," Sam concedes, offering Dean a hand up. "Let's do this."

Cas picks up a spear and a small box from the pile of Heavenly weapons and hands one to each of them. Hannah stands behind him with two more items, a jar and a machete, and several of the angels follow suit, picking up a couple of items from the pile and standing in a line.

"Hurry," Cas says. "Metatron is not our only concern."

Sam doesn't know what else is concerning Cas, but he's got Dean's pain on his mind. Dean has a very high tolerance for pain, and has more steely-minded stubbornness than any twelve people put together, but it still sucks, and Sam has not forgotten the feeling of dying by inches.

Sam takes the box, wrapping his grace around it to see if he can latch on to the divine power somewhere in it. He can feel the power, it is pulsing with it, but he doesn't know how to draw it out. He tries to remember the sensation of pulling his grace from the angel blade made with it, but that was different. It was _his_. He could feel it resonating with the grace already inside of him.

Resonating. That's it. He concentrates on the box, finding the frequency of its divine power. It's lower than Sam's grace, or Cas's, which feels different to Sam now. It's a different frequency than either of their souls, or Dean's. It's _deeper_. As he concentrates on it, he finds he can change the frequency of his grace in the tendril surrounding the box, making it slower, lining up the peaks and valleys with the pulses coming off of the weapon. When he locks in, the essence of the box leaps at him, following his grace up into his hands, and he gets a nasty shock on his fingertips.

He turns to Dean to explain it, but Dean was probably just waiting for Sam to figure it out, because Sam looks over just in time to see the bright white of the divine power from the spear hit Dean full in the face.

"Ow," Dean grumbles, but drops the spear. Sam reaches out but Dean waves him off, holding out his hand for the jar Hannah's presenting to him.

They suck the divine power out of the small pile of Heaven's armament, Sam feeling more and more uncomfortably full, like a balloon about to burst. On top of his own discomfort, which is welcome after the pain of the last time he did this, there's Cas's grief, a high, bittersweet note singing in his ears. He hasn't grieved yet; he hasn't made time, really, and why make time when you can avoid it? Which is what Dean is doing too, Sam knows, because Dean's sense of purpose is still foremost in his mind, and even the extreme pain he's going through as he takes in more and more divine power can barely touch it. 

Sam finally places Dean's pain, when he takes the time to concentrate on it. Growing pains. Sam remembers those teenage years when he was growing inches taller in months, those horrible all-over diffuse pain of the human body expanding its limits. It was awful, and Dean's pain is too, but his celestial body is filling in as Sam watches, the ley lines Sam built turning into sparkling conduits of grace, and his wings growing beautiful robin's egg blue feathers tipped in white. His wings are gorgeous.

There's only one angel left with Heavenly weapons to give them; he's small, and not in a vessel. It makes Sam wonder about angels; he'd assumed they were of similar sizes in their natural forms. He certainly hadn't expected enough variation for one of them to be thought of as _small_. If it'd been a human, Sam would've guessed he was a young teen, maybe thirteen or fourteen, and that begs the question of angel children, which is another thing Sam has never considered before. 

They drain the last two weapons – a pair of short swords that are clearly a set – and Sam pushes the Enochian words at Dean again, followed immediately by a countdown. _Three. Two. One._

"CANA OM DARR, COAZIOR NANAEEL."

Dean writhes in pain, fire, now, a burning sensation Sam remembers all too well. He falls to his knees, and Sam goes down too, both hands on Dean to steady him. He's cranky – Sam can see it as a rusty reddish-brown underneath all the blinding white of the grace – and annoyed that he needs help. Sam just keeps his hands on Dean and sends Cas a thought. _Get the angels in here. Get them close and start sending the grace._

"Come," Cas says, stepping around the pair of them until he is at their back, one hand on each of their necks. His skin is warm and Sam can feel the affection in the way his grace circles them before soaking in. It _tastes_ like Cas, which just proves Cas's point that his grace is his now, and not really Sam's anymore.

The rest of the angels circle them, holding their palms out and projecting grace toward the Winchesters. It's blinding to his human eyes, so Sam closes them, watches only with his celestial eyes, the beauty of the grace as it joins the throbbing mass of it that nearly obliterates Dean from his sight. He can feel the edges of Dean's pain, but it's consumed by the grace swirling around them like a cyclone. 

He has to concentrate on Dean though – he has to make sure they say the words before Dean loses the ability to speak. These trials are much more of a judgment call than the Hell trials. Dean is swaying on his knees, and Sam can feel him hanging on by his fingernails. There's so much grace built up in, around, and between them… it has to be enough. 

_Dean!_

Dean's eyes are closed, his chin tipped up just a little, looking up at… who knows, maybe Heaven, and Sam calls to him again. Softer and sweeter. _Dean._

Dean frowns, but opens his eyes and looks at Sam. Sam can see the grace there, the light of a thousand stars and not the bright green of Dean's eyes, but he can feel Dean still in there. _It's time._

Dean closes his eyes and nods, bringing his hands up to cup Sam's neck. _Love you, Sammy._

Sam swallows and nods. He can't say the words or he won't be able to do this, he won't be able to watch Dean die in front of his eyes, no matter what the cost. He pushes the Enochian at Dean, encouraged by the slight, bobbled nod of Dean's head.

_Three._

_Two._

_Love you, Cas._ Sam's not sure which one of them said it; it might have been both. He feels like they've almost become the same being; a feeling of completeness steals over him, and he wonders if maybe they weren't supposed to be brothers at all, but maybe just one person, and something got in the way and split him into pieces, and that's how Sam and Dean were made. 

_I love you too,_ Cas says, the sensation of him squeezing their physical necks distant. _Now do this, so I can see you both whole in Heaven._

Sam nods his head, letting his chin drop to his chest. He is exhausted, and they deserve this. They deserve rest.

_One._

"CANA OM DARR, COAZIOR NANAEEL."

The grace spills out of them, a beacon heading straight up, though not really up – up through dimensional space, not physical space. Sam can easily see the difference now. He wonders if his physical body has died, if those senses had been keeping him from understanding the way metaphysical space worked.

There is much more grace than the trials to close Hell, and Sam watches it with more distance than the last time. He hears the great lever of the universe shifting and the angels all around them are pulled away as he feels the gates shudder closed, and the universe giving a quick shake, like a dog after a bath. It's enough to knock him over, and he falls into the darkness, reaching out for Dean.

~~~

There are birds chirping. Somehow, that's not what Sam expected in Heaven. Not that he has anything against birds, just… he thought he'd be inside to start, maybe a really _really_ big bed. Come to think of it, he's sore. His body feels like he's run a marathon after going ten rounds with a particularly nasty demon.

"Ow," he says, or more accurately _groans_. "This is not the way to start Heaven."

"Way too bright," Dean says, and when Sam looks around to see where Dean is, he's just out of reach, face first in the dirt. Sam shades his eyes. It is pretty bright.

Sam sits up and looks around. They're in a field. Not one he particularly recognizes, though, which is weird, if this is supposed to be Heaven.

"Recognize this place?" Sam asks, trying to figure out if they have to hike to their Heaven or something. And should they pray for Cas? Will that work here?

 _Cas?_ Sam asks, his heart lifting a little as he thinks of the angel. They're here, together. No matter where it is, that's a win. Now all they have to do is find their angel. _Cas, can you hear me? Can you find us?_

"Sam," Cas's gravelly voice says. Sam starts, looking around for Cas. He's standing over Dean, his shadow providing Dean the shade he needs to fall back asleep. Unbelievable.

"This isn't what I expected our Heaven to look like," Sam says, and Cas laughs. It's a good laugh, real and not sarcastic, and Sam thinks maybe he's never actually heard Cas laugh before. It's amazing.

"This isn't Heaven, Sam. Can't you feel your physical body?"

Oh, Sam can feel it all right. "So, what," Sam demands, because he can't really believe they got this lucky, "we're still _alive_?"

"Yes!" Cas says, his good cheer weirdly infectious. "Yes, you are both alive and whole, physical, celestial… even your souls are intact."

Wait, celestial? Sam flares his wings, the span spreading wide around him, lifting him up to standing. He laughs with the sheer joy of it. "Your wings are beautiful, Sam." 

That reminds him. He looks down at Dean, at the new wings that are no longer smoky and ethereal, but real, and, as he leans down to put his hands in the feathers, soft to the touch. "Mmmph," Dean complains. "Trying to sleep, here."

"Well, don't," Sam says. "We're not dead." 

Dean rolls over, shading his eyes and glaring up at him. "Then why's Cas here?"

"I'm not dead either," Cas says. Sam can see both his soul and his celestial body. So Cas is still intact, too, whatever that means for them now. He has no idea how this all worked out, but he sends up a short prayer of thanksgiving to all the angels that helped them and to God, too. Missing or not, Sam knows he's keeping an eye on things. 

"We did close the gates, right?" Sam asks. He felt the motion, the shuddering of the universe, but he can't understand why they're all still here.

"Do you hear the angels?" Cas asks.

Sam closes his eyes to concentrate on the low hum of angel radio. It's gone. "No," he says, opening his eyes and shading them to keep looking up at Cas. 

"Neither can I," Cas responds, smiling still, but sad despite it. "We're free."

"Free to go find me some pie?" Dean asks. He sits up out of Cas's shadow and shades his eyes. "If I'm not dead, I want some damn apple pie." 

Sam turns to his head to follow his brother's gaze and realizes he recognizes the rolling hills in front of him. "Are we in Tuscany?" 

Cas smiles. "Yes." 

It's beautiful. 

"All right," Dean grumps, getting up and dusting himself off. "I guess I can go for pizza, instead."

~~~

The End

~~~

**Author's Note:**

> So, obviously I go a bit far afield from canon, here. There are a few major things that I've always had trouble with post-S8 finale. **One.** Cas's angelic body should still be intact, wings and all. It never made sense to me that Cas wouldn't have wings – he didn't fall to Earth, he was put there by Metatron (presumably a human/graceless Cas would have died in the fall, and since Castiel didn't die, Metatron set him nicely on Earth). Also, there should have been angels that were already on Earth, and, not having fell, their wings would be intact as well.  
>  **Two.** As the above might indicate, I separate grace from the angelic body. I've always struggled with the concept of 'true form' and what, exactly, grace does or doesn't have to do with it. I've decided that grace is simply divine power, and angels have a body, just like humans do. And we can only see the smallest part of it – wings – and even then only in shadow.  
>  **Three.** Speaking of wings, Cas's are not black, a hat tip to clavally, who hates it when Cas's wings are denoted as black because their shadow is black. Every angel's wings are shown only in shadow or in ash, after they've died, so there's no reason they couldn't be any color of the rainbow.  
>  **Four.** I've changed Metatron's spell to one that simply cast the angels from Heaven. It doesn't make any sense to me that he closed the gates _and_ cast the angels out with the same spell. That's the opposite of the gate closure for Hell – canon seemed to indicate it would call all the demons back to Hell and keep them in forever. So I assume Metatron simply cast a spell to kick out the angels (later canon does say that it was the same spell that cast Lucifer out - but apparently just to Earth instead of to a custom-designed cage in Hell), and then padlocked the gates from the inside, which is why souls couldn't get in. (One assumes that closing the gates via the trials simply keeps non-souls in/out; otherwise all humans would stay on Earth as ghosts forever (or in the veil, which is, I'm sure, _so_ much better), which doesn't make any sense – not to mention that the tablets were demon and angel tablets, so presumably the spell/rituals listed there were specifically referring to things that would affect demons and angels (doesn't this make you wonder if there's a human tablet?.) Not that the writers have to make sense, or anything, but generally I like my internal story logic to be, well, _logical_.  
>  **Lastly.** I had a feeling I was going to be rather heavily kripked by the season finale, and I… was not. I was jossed. But my beta pointed out that the ending I had tacked on with Chuck was really not much more than me, as an author, explaining things I had spent _so much time on_ and that it was better left with the three of them, sans all the wordy explanations. I really like Chuck, though, and the scene does what I really wanted the show to do – show that Castiel is _so much more_ than just some little rank and file angel. He's been proven extraordinary time and again, and the show totally dropped that ball (and the hint they gave us mid-season, where Amara was weakened by touching Cas). So as an extra, there is a deleted scene from the end of the fic, along with some of those hours and hours of thinking through this stuff. (I like to post recordings of me rambling on about fic and characterization and canon and … whatever. I'm a talker.) Also included is a graphic I made that goes along with part 4 of the rambling. Hope y'all enjoyed.


End file.
